Algarve Approves of Trapattoni

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Algarve Approves of Trapattoni

March 26, 2008

By Cathal Dervan

FOR years now taxi drivers, bar men and waiters have been the patron saints of journalists too lazy to look elsewhere for inspiration on the burning issues of the day. How often have you picked up your favorite paper and read an account of a conversation between your columnist and the last taxi driver/barman/waiter he bumped into?

It’s a common occurrence, one we all exploit when time is of the essence and the power of imagination is running as thin as the hairline.

That’s why this week’s column comes to you from a beachside bar and restaurant in Portugal, a bar that has frequented this very page on more than one occasion in the past.

It is, you see, a very nice bar. Bar Luis, the locals and the Irish who now regard themselves as locals, call it simply because that is the name of the bar.

It is situated on the Algarve coastline, nestled alongside the Atlantic Ocean and last weekend it was a reasonably warm port of call, warmer certainly than back home in Royal Meath.

The bar staff and I are on first name terms, mainly because their English is a thousand times better than my Portuguese. They have even managed to learn how to pronounce my name properly and, unlike some I could mention in the Bronx, rarely take it in vein unless it is very late at night.

They also know of my love of the beautiful game and my devotion to 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or whatever you are playing yourself in the Garrison Game.

It is a religion we share, a language we are all fluent in, the Irish and the Portuguese and even the odd English people who are also allowed into our secret den of liquidity.

The Portuguese, in case you don’t know, are a divided nation when it comes to football. They have three main teams, Sporting and Benfica from Lisbon and Porto from the country’s second city to the north of their fine land.

Practically the entire population here align themselves to one of the big three, even if they come from many hundreds of miles away.

In Bar Luis, the working population is divided between Sporting and Benfica, the former who wear a Celtic style shirt and the latter who can be found most days in a Man United style red shirt, though they do have a very cute pink jersey for alternative days out.

On Wednesday night last week, as we escaped the arctic conditions back home, it seemed a fine time to discuss football with my bar room friends, particularly as the Irish under-17s had just beaten their Portuguese counterparts 2-0 in the game in Galway that qualified them for the European finals in May.

One of the Sporting fans in our company that night didn’t believe me, and even went so far as to check in his local newspaper that his national team had indeed been beaten.

When he confirmed the bad news we got to talking about Giovanni Trapattoni, the new Ireland manager who spent a championship winning season with the aforementioned Benfica here in Portugal not so long ago.

I had to ask their opinion of the great man, and it was all good. From what they told me Trapattoni is a tactical genius who gets on well with his players and knows how to get the very best out of them. He is also a born winner, which is something we could do with in Ireland right now after years of failure.

The interesting news from Bar Luis is that Gio only left Benfica because the administrators who ran the club broke their promises to him. “He does not tolerate fools at all, that is why he walked away from Benfica, but he is a great manager,” a waiter of a Benfica red persuasion told me.

Quite how Trapattoni copes with the Football Association of Ireland then is going to be interesting, but at least he has the bar room seal of approval here in the Algarve.

As a lazy journalist in need of a column that, trust me, is good news. Very good news.

Now all I have to do is check him out with the local taxi drivers!

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