The Inside Track, with Tony O’Donoghue
Budapest and beyond
The Mighty Magyars. The name alone evokes an image of football in black and white, of the other worldliness of post-war Eastern Europe.
The stadium where Ireland play Hungary in the final warm up for the European Championships is named after the mightiest: Ferenc Puskas.
Posters of the team that beat England here adorn the corridor walls of the main stand and although the glory is faded there is still a sense of magic, a spirit to the place that can still give you shivers like Dalymount.
Great things happened here. Football played the way it should be played, Hungary the international equivalent of Barcelona in their day.
Ireland come here in great shape physically, mentally and emotionally. The niggling injuries have cleared, the loss of Keith Fahey and Kevin Foley although heartbreaking for both of them has been dealt with and put away. Now the real story of the European Championships 2012 can begin to be written.
Ireland face Croatia next Sunday in Poznan in the first of three group games. On Thursday it’s the reigning World and European Champions, Spain, in Gdansk and two weeks from now on Monday the 18th the tie that could decide Ireland’s fate against Trapattoni and Tardelli’s home nation, Italy, in Poznan.
Even writing that paragraph now that we are finally so close to the action has got the goosebumps out. As we struggle with our excess baggage can we dare to dream of a quarter-final in Donetsk or Kiev or a semi-final in Warsaw or Donetsk or even a date with destiny on the first of July in Kiev for the final itself?
As Trap himself often tells us: Why no?, Why no?
Marco Tardelli, who scored for Italy in the 1982 World Cup final, is a dreamer, according to Trapattoni. He said in Montecatini that he had a plan and that the plan involved drawing with Croatia and beating Spain and Italy to get us out of the group.
It may have been tongue-in-cheek but the reality is that it will take a supreme effort to get out of the group.
Croatia are heading to their third successive European Championship finals hoping to match or better their feat of four years ago when they won all their group games and were only denied a place in the semi-finals by the dreaded penalty shoot out and defeat to Turkey.
Slaven Bilic, the head coach is a shrewd operator and he has plenty of quality at his disposal with Luka Modric, Nikica Jelavic, and Niko Kranjcar - all well known to followers of the English Premier League.
But they have other notable talents as well including Josep Simunic, Darijc Srna and Ivica Olic, though the last-named, a Bayern Munich striker, has returned to Germany for treatment with the Croatian medics saying there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to play a part in the Euros.
This is the game that Tardelli, the dreamer, is most concerned about. RTÉ analyst and former member of the Trapattoni backroom team Liam Brady thinks that Croatia can go all the way and win the tournament, although you’ll still get generous odds on that one.
The opening game of a championship group has so much riding on it and with the lengthy build up and the inevitable rise of tension between now and next Sunday the stakes seem to reach higher and higher.
Croatia and the Republic of Ireland were the two biggest foulers and the two most fouled teams in qualifying so the chances are we’ll see cards in this one. Will we see goals, I wonder?
In Budapest Trapattoni said that without the yellow or red cards and injury notwithstanding we may well field the same familiar starting eleven in every game of the group.
Given, O’Shea, Dunne, St Ledger, Ward, Duff, Whelan, Andrews, McGeady, Doyle and Keane; Your country needs you. Stay safe. Stay well.
Maintaining the 13-match unbeaten run against Hungary was never going to be the priority for Trapattoni. Leaving the Ferenc Puskas stadium behind the Republic of Ireland squad head straight for their Polish base in Sopot.
The real business of tournament championship football is about to begin.
Tony O’Donoghue is Group Soccer Correspondent for RTÉ.
