Liam Brady is expected to play a key role in the Ireland managerial hierarchy after Giovanni Trapattoni is appointed as the new manager today. Brady, the Arsenal academy director, has been given the blessing of Arsène Wenger, his club manager, to combine his part-time international duties with those at the Emirates Stadium.
In many respects, the Ireland set-up would appear to be similar to that of England, with Fabio Capello, the manager, assisted by Franco Baldini and, nominally, Stuart Pearce, the England Under21 manager. If a shade harsh, the integration of Pearce into the backroom staff has been interpreted by some observers as Anglo-Italian “tokenism”. Brady’s role within the Ireland camp will be nothing of the sort. He played for Juventus under Trapattoni in the early 1980s, maintains a special relationship with him and is likely to be handed the position of his assistant. He will be no menial “gofer”. Claudio Gentile, the former Italy defender, will be a coach.
Though Trapattoni’s grasp of English is better than reported, Brady, who is fluent in Italian, will have another role to carry out as translator to the players and possibly the media. It is a task more or less performed by Gustavo Poyet at Tottenham Hotspur on behalf of Juande Ramos, the Spanish head coach.
Trapattoni, 68, won the hearts and votes of the three-man selection panel of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) on Sunday when he met Don Givens, Don Howe and Ray Houghton for two hours. The trio were impressed by his enthusiasm, how he had studied video footage of Ireland’s past two matches – against Wales and Brazil – and his detailed knowledge of the Irish players.
John Delaney, chief executive of the FAI, was due to finalise the deal yesterday, with Trapattoni expected to earn £1 million a year over the duration of the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign, which begins with a match away to Georgia in September.Ireland’s group, intriguingly, also includes Italy, the world champions.
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Delaney will announce the appointment after the selection panel has reported to the FAI’s board of management. In deference to Trapattoni’s club – Red Bull Salzburg, of Austria – he will not be present in Dublin this afternoon. He will see out the league season with Salzburg before starting work with the FAI in May.
Top of Trapattoni’s list of priorities is to persuade Stephen Ireland, the talented yet troubled Manchester City midfield player, to resume playing for his country. Ireland walked out on the squad in September, citing reasons that later proved to be false, and has since refused to return to the fold. “Giovanni will tell him how he once marked Pel? out of a game,” an Italian source said last night. “He’ll show him old pictures and tell him about all the great players he’s worked with.”