International soccer: Former Italy international midfielder Marco Tardelli has confirmed he will become Giovanni Trapattoni's assistant in the new Ireland team management set-up.
The 53-year-old, who has managed the Italian under-21s, Inter Milan and the Egyptian national team, said he was excited by the prospect of working with his former Juventus boss again and by the fact Ireland will face Italy in the World Cup qualifiers.
"I'm happy about this new adventure and about being reunited with Trap," Tardelli told an Italian radio station after agreeing a two-year deal with the FAI. "I'm stimulated by the idea of having to face Italy (in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers).
"Giovanni and I have a great desire to do well," said the Italian, who is perhaps best remembered for his goal and subsequent celebration during his country's World Cup final win over West Germany in 1982.
"And I like the idea of being for Trapattoni what (Carlos) Queiroz is for Alex Ferguson at Manchester United."
Tardelli, who guided the Italian under-21s to a European title but has been less successful in management since, is set to play a important role in the new set-up. It is expected that, like Trapattoni, he will spend a good deal of time in Britain watching Irish players in action.
Given the need to attend so many British club games, Trapattoni's decision to base himself in Milan, while effectively commuting to Premier League games, has raised some eyebrows in Italy. "Trapattoni is not a man who shows his age," said one media commentator yesterday, "but people still wonder how, when he is 69, he will cope with travelling like an air hostess."
It is partly the veteran coach's lack of first-hand knowledge of the Premier League and the players he has inherited that makes the involvement of Liam Brady such a priority for the Italian, and the Dubliner confirmed yesterday morning that he was interested in meeting his former boss when he returns from holidays in the Caribbean to discuss how he might help out.
Brady ruled out leaving his job as academy director with Arsenal to take a full-time position in the Ireland set-up, but the midfielder, who played alongside Tardelli in the Juventus side for two seasons in the early 1980s, made no secret of the fact he is willing to play some part.
"I'd need to talk to Giovanni a bit more," Brady told RTÉ radio. "I've only spoken to him over the phone, so I would need to sit down with him face to face, find out what he would want from me or what I could do for him, and then obviously take it up with Arsenal.
"I don't want to give up my job with Arsenal," he continued. "I love my job with Arsenal. But I don't want to talk too much about that, because I don't know what's going to develop until I sit down and talk with Mr Trapattoni."
FAI chief executive John Delaney hopes to be clearer on Trapattoni's plans after visiting him in Salzburg in the coming days. Delaney is due to be accompanied by David Blood and Michael Cody.
Among other things, the three are due to deliver a consignment of DVDs of recent Ireland games to the Italian, whose club side, Red Bull, resume their Austrian league programme with a home game this evening.
Delaney said earlier in the week the new manager would have the option of adding another game to the Republic's friendly programme in May, when the team is already scheduled to play Serbia, or to hold a training camp for the squad.
It is expected Trapattoni will take the latter option, and it was revealed on Wednesday he had also inquired about the possibility of getting the players in for additional days around matches to spend more time with them on the training ground.
The new Ireland manager's successor in the Italy job, meanwhile, believes Trapattoni has his work cut out.
"It will be very difficult for Trapattoni," says Marcello Lippi, who oversaw their World Cup success in Germany a little over a year-and-a-half ago.
"It will be hard for Ireland to qualify precisely because Italy are in the same group. But this does not mean Trapattoni cannot do well and give a great hand to Irish football. I don't think there is anything to worry about, now everyone all over the world knows how football is played.
"The problem, if anything, would be for him," said Lippi. "From a psychological point of view it will be a strange sensation for him to face the Italian national team as an opponent.
"But, it's good," he continued, "that after Fabio Capello on the England bench, now we have Trapattoni in the Ireland post. It shows that Italian tacticians are held in high esteem and respected around the world.
"Italian coaches are considered the ideal to set out a new winning era for a team, and our (the World Cup winning side's) success influenced the overall perception of our football. But I don't think that applies to Capello and Trapattoni, who have such an important career behind them they don't need any help."
