Last night in Bari Irish fans witnessed a fantastic result for their national team as the Republic picked up a 1-1 draw with World Cup champions Italy, but was it really a good result?
Before the game a point away from home against Italy would be a great result for most nations but when the home side go down to 10 men early in the game (even though it was a ridiculous red card) then it gives you a chance and it’s a chance which should be taken.
Ireland dominated the game from the moment they kicked off after Italy’s goal, yet it took until the 87th minute again they got that much-deserved equaliser .
Everyone seemed happy with the result yet I couldn’t help but feel that we had missed a great chance to cause a real shock.
Don’t get me wrong, I know Ireland are nowhere near the level of Italy but any team with a man less will struggle and we had them on the back foot for at least 70 minutes, yet could only score until the final three minutes.
It’s disappointing in my view as we would have gone top of our World Cup Qualifying group and it would have given us a real chance of automatic qualification, never mind the play-offs.
However, the country was delighted today as we drew with the World Champions. So what? We could have won.
I would see this as two points lost but even Giovanni Trapattoni was happy. It seems things still haven’t changed since Roy Keane’s days in a green shirt.
The Corkman was always agitated by his fellow countrymen’s attitude of ‘we gave it a good effort and did well’.
‘Well’ was never good enough for the fiery midfielder and I echo his sentiments.
Last night proved that attitude still exists even though I thought the experienced Italian manager had filtered it out.
The Republic of Ireland football team have always seemed happy just to be there, to be in Italy playing the World Champions seemed good enough, just as it does every time we get to a World Cup.
With a 10 men Italy and us dominating the game with the majority of the possession, nothing but three points and moving to the top of the group should have been satisfying.
We saw what happened when Keane stood up against this mentality so I doubt anyone else will dare, let’s just hope the dropped points doesn’t hamper our qualification chances.
