Giovanni Trapattoni is confident his Republic of Ireland players will not allow their anger to boil over as they attempt to dump France out of the World Cup at the Stade de France tomorrow night.
There were a series of furious confrontations on the pitch at Croke Park on Saturday night as Ireland slipped to a 1-0 defeat in the first leg of their play-off encounter.
The bust-ups were sparked by Lassana Diarra’s comments to Keith Andrews — which he has since denied making — suggesting that Ireland’s dream was at an end.
However, while the Real Madrid midfielder may have unwittingly provided a little extra motivation, Trapattoni has no fears that his players will lose their heads in Paris.
He said: “I played football too and I know what happens. Players in games are always under pressure and sometimes, they don’t know what happens in these moments. I am sure we and also the French players have forgotten all about it.
“I have said to the players, these games are for warm hearts and cool heads. We must play with cool heads, but warm hearts.
“With feet, we can score goals. If we keep cool heads, we can use our feet to score goals.”
Skipper Robbie Keane too insisted he and his team-mates would not allow their difference of opinion with Diarra to distract them from their mission.
Keane said: “As far as we are concerned, that’s gone. It happened after the game. Of course, every player’s reaction straight after would be, ‘I didn’t say this’, or whatever.
“But that’s just the way it is. It’s obviously put a bit of fuel to the fire, but we can’t be going into the game thinking about Diarra or the comments he made.
“We have to concentrate on the job at hand, and we will certainly be doing that.”
That said, the Irish would like nothing better than to provide Diarra with the perfect response by cancelling out the lead Nicolas Anelka’s goal gave France in Dublin and then overhauling it to take their place in South Africa.
Keane said: “We can’t be worried about what happened before. I don’t think we need anything to be up for this game.
“We know what’s at stake at the end of it and we will certainly be up for it as players.
“Regardless of what anyone else said or what anyone else did, we would be up for this game, and we have to be because there is a massive carrot dangling at the end of it.
“It’s the World Cup that as a kid, we all dream of playing in. I keep saying it, but I have been fortunate enough to play in one and I am desperate to play in another.”
Trapattoni has hinted he will field the seem team as the one which started at Croke Park, and that would mean another start for Stoke midfielder Liam Lawrence on the right at the expense of Celtic’s Aiden McGeady.
Ireland know they will have to score once and probably at least twice to stand a chance of going through in Paris.
They did register in four of their five away games during their qualifying group, and although Trapattoni’s favoured approach is based on defensive resilience from front to back, he is confident they can do so once again.
He said: “We cannot lose our heads in this situation, we need to be calm, but I will not sit on the bench without trying everything.
“We can’t let the game finish and not get a result because I haven’t changed things. But we must not forget, in many, many finals in the World Cup or the Champions League, the very important games, there are not many goals — 1-0, 1-0, 1-0.
“In the very important games, teams do not score three, four or five goals. It’s very, very difficult. We still have 90 minutes to play. I have told the players they must believe we can do it and achieve this qualification.”
Meanwhile, France coach Raymond Domenech will be forced to make at least one change after Barcelona defender Eric Abidal picked up a thigh injury in Dublin.
His place at the heart of the French defence alongside William Gallas is likely to go to one of the Sevilla duo of Julien Escude or Sebastien Squillaci. Both started three games during France’s qualification campaign.
