Like i said before; football has a strange way of making hypocrites out of all us.....
Rep. Ireland - Georgia: Giovanni Trapattoni Has the Luck of the Irish
When the FAI declared Italian Giovanni Trapattoni as the new Republic of Ireland manager little did they know that he has more luck than the Irish themselves.
Last night poor old Georgia were once again on the receiving end of this good luck.
Trapattoni's first slice of luck came in September when Ireland were scheduled to play Georgia in the away fixture in Tiblisi. However, UEFA deemed the country unstable as Russian troops entered South Ossestia and Georgia lost home advantage.
The Georgian FA asked for the ties to be reversed. This way Ireland would host Georgia in September and Georgia would host the Irish in February when hostilities had died down.
As luck would have it for the Irish, Croke Park was unavaibale in September as the All-Ireland hurling and football finals were been played.
It was decided that Georgia would lose their home advantage and the game was played in Mainz, Germany. The Irish went on to win 2-1...........
........Ireland left the field at half-time to a few boos and Trapattoni, Tardelli and Brady knew that something different was needed in the second half if the home side were to get the three points so desperately needed to keep in touch with the Italians.....
..........Then up stepped Finnish referee Jouni Hyytia for his moment in the spotlight in what was his final "big" game as official.
To confusion from both the Irish and Georgian sides, Hyytia awarded a penalty to the boys in green.
A long ball found its way to Robbie Keane who seemed to control the ball with his hand only for the referee to let play continue.
The ball was then cleared but only as far as Kevin Doyle as it deflected off the Waterford man and into the path of Ucha Lobjanidze. The referee then gave a shrill blast of his whistle for what appeared to be an offside by Keane.
Instead to everyones surprise, Hyytia pointed to the penalty spot and deemed Lobjanidze to have handled the ball.
Replays showed that Keane had handled the ball in the lead-up to this decision and that Keane was also offside as play continued. However, most surprising it also showed that the Georgian's hand had gone nowhere near the football which had hit him if anywhere on his collarbone.Regardless of what the referee had thought he had seen,
Keane did not need to be asked twice and immediately set the ball down on the penalty spot. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/123208-repireland-georgia-giovanni-trappatoni-has-the-luck-of-the-irishNow i missed Robbie's post-match interview that night but i'm sure he suggested the game was replayed.....didn't he? 'Cause there's no way Keane's a f***in' cheat, eh?
Nail on head.