The most successful Italian manager in gainful employment is not, despite his considerable achievements, Fabio Capello. Rather than Wembley, Bari's San Nicola Stadium awaits for the nation's most decorated coach. Depending upon the criteria, he is either Marcello Lippi or Giovanni Trapattoni. As Italy and Ireland meet tonight, the quest for supremacy in Group Eight threatens to be overshadowed by the return of a particularly distinguished emigrant.
Trapattoni has won five European trophies and 10 league titles in four countries, seven of them in his homeland. He has lifted the European Cup, as has Lippi in its newer guise as the Champions League, and he has revived an Irish side who have a seven-point cushion ahead of the third-placed team, Bulgaria. Liam Brady's position as the Republic of Ireland's assistant manager, coupled with his background as one of Trapattoni's charges at Juventus, qualifies him to assess the duel in the dugouts.
He said: "Lippi is reigning world champion. "I suppose Giovanni is the king of Italian coaches and there is going to be huge interest in the battle between them." Trapattoni's last job in Italy was with the Azzurri, his reign coming to an unseemly ended when, after a World Cup and a European Championship of ill-tempered underachievement, he exited. Two years later, Lippi's squad, containing the nucleus of Trapattoni's team but equipped with a more attack-minded approach, won the World Cup.
Then Trapattoni, already a byword for catenaccio, appeared a relic from an earlier generation, even though, as the vintage of both football managers and politicians shows, ageism is not an issue in Italy. Instead, having turned 70 on St Patrick's Day, his enduring enthusiasm is apparent in his exuberant attempts at English. A new country, however, has not brought a change in his ethos. Defensiveness is understandable in an away fixture against the world champions, but the limited intent of the best-paid manager in Ireland's history is already an issue.
His side were insufficiently adventurous for the Croke Park crowd who booed after Saturday's 1-1 draw with Bulgaria. With Manchester City's Stephen Ireland in premature international retirement, the most creative central midfielder available, Andy Reid, continues to be excluded from the squad while the workmanlike pair of Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews are preferred. The faces may be unfamiliar to the Italians, but the style is recognisable.
"You can see the hand, the foot and the head of Trap at work in this side," Lippi said. A more progressive Azzurri coach has to find a way of defeating an old-school Italian manager. "We have a distinct lack of pressure on our side," Trapattoni said. "Ireland are big underdogs and few think we have a chance." For the optimists among the Irish support, there are echoes of a meeting under another managerial import, when Jack Charlton's team beat the eventual finalists in New York in the 1994 World Cup.
For the realists, Italy's record under Lippi, incorporating a solitary defeat in their last 33 games, outlines the size of Trapattoni's task. Yet that may be the appeal. Only he can say definitively if the presence of Italy in Ireland's group prompted him to take the job. But for the monarch in exile across the water, even a draw would enhance his credentials to be crowned the king of Italian coaches.
rjolly@thenational.ae Italy v Ireland Aljazeera Sport+3 (ko 10.50pm)
