SOCCER: Rep of Ireland 2, Italy 0: KEITH ANDREWS and Simon Cox teamed up superbly to fire Giovanni Trapattoni's Republic of Ireland to victory over his native country Italy. The Blackburn midfielder's sweet 36th-minute strike and a second from substitute Cox at the death secured a fourth successive win for the Republic and extended Trapattoni's unbeaten record against the team he once managed to three games.
Certainly the vast majority of the crowd left Liege last night in shock, including the Italian manager Cesare Prandelli, who had spent six years under Trapattoni as a midfielder at Juventus.
Given the relative strengths of the two starting line-ups, the fans had braved the driving rain and come to the Maurice Defrasne Stadium expecting one way traffic on the scale of a parade. The most remarkable thing was that they got it but not the victory by which it was supposed to be accompanied.
Instead, the Irish, having gone in front on 36 minutes courtesy of Andrews, taught them a lesson in art of dogged defending before, almost unbelievably, catching their star-studded opponents on the break in the dying seconds to double their margin of victory through Cox.
The few hundred Irish supporters in one corner of the ground deliriously hailed what was only Ireland’s second ever victory over the Azzurri. Up in the stand, the man who delivered the first at the World Cup in America, Ray Houghton, looked almost as disbelieving.
The record under Trapattoni, as it happens, is rather more impressive now with one victory and two draws in three meetings for the team he currently manages.
If a team marshalled from the back at the outset by Giorgio Chiellini was second best, however, it was when it came to hunger. Deep down, the Irish wanted it more with Stephen Hunt, in what will surely go down as one of the most memorable performances of his career, and Darren O’Dea showing even more appetite than the rest.
For long spells in both halves, Trapattoni’s men had to work very hard simply to relieve the pressure, but they never stopped and such was the heroic scale of the defensive effort in front of him that David Forde did not have to make a single save of note until injury-time when he got down well a low drive by Riccardo Montolivo. Whatever else he had to do over the course of the 90 minutes, though, the Galwayman did well. Time and again he came to gather or clear as the back four held up remarkably well under the pressure.
Almost instinctively it had been the Italians who had taken control early on, building from the back and pushing the ball around midfield to good effect. The Irish chased them down at every opportunity and with Andy Keogh spending almost as much time helping out in the centre of the park as he did lending support to Shane Long up front, they sought to get bodies in amongst their opponents. For the most part, though, it was only in the last third, as things became that much more densely packed, that Prandelli’s men really struggled to have things their own way.
Montolivo was supposed to be pulling the strings for the four times world champions front two from a deep lying role between the Irish banks of four but members of both the Irish defence and midfield laid heavily into the 26-year-old over the opening minutes and he was generally well crowded out.
Behind him, Andrea Pirlo was somewhat harder to stymie and the accomplished Juventus midfielder wasn’t long about showing that he could open the Irish up if given half a chance. Antonio Nocerino looked a threat pushing forward down the left while the strikers, Giampaolo Pazzini and Guiseppe Rossi both lurked dangerously around the box at every opportunity.
Sean St Ledger and the rest of the defence worked relentlessly to limit their opportunities and while some of the Irish defending wasn’t exactly flawless, it was certainly magnificently spirited and effective enough over the course of the first 45 minutes to limit the Italians to one angled shot over by Pazzini and a couple of long-range efforts by Nocerino, none of which were actually on target.
The first real threat to Emiliano Viviano’s goal might have come from a free by Hunt early on but his effort clipped the wall and flew harmlessly off target. For the second, a little further out, the Wolves midfielder knocked it short to Andrews and as the Italians napped he stole perhaps seven metres before letting fly with a shot that hurtled low past the goalkeeper and into the bottom left corner.
However, the Irish fans had to pinch themselves in the final minutes when Stephen Ward fed Hunt and he scampered off up the left wing, rounded an opponent and crossed low for Cox to finish from a yard or so out.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Forde (Millwall); McShane (Hull City), St Ledger (Preston North End), O’Dea (Celtic), Ward (Wolves); Coleman (Everton), Andrews (Blackburn Rovers), Foley (Wolves), Hunt (Wolves); Keogh (Wolves), Long (Reading). Subs: Cox (West Brom) for Long and Whelan (Stoke City) for Foley (both 59 mins), Treacy (Preston North End) for Keogh (75 mins), Kelly (Fulham) for O’Dea (83 mins), Delaney (Ipswich Town) for Ward (90 mins).
ITALY: Viviano; Cassani, Gamberini, Chiellini, Criscito; Marchisio, Pirlo, Nocerino; Montolivo; Rossi, Pazzini. Subs: Palombo for Pirlo and Matri for Rossi (both half-time), Giovinco for and Gilardino for Nocerino (both 59 mins), Balzaretti for Criscito (66 mins).
Referee: Serge Gumienny (Belgium)
