IRISH FOOTBALL LEGEND Liam Brady revealed yesterday that he has no interest in returning to senior management — not even if he was offered the Republic of Ireland job.
Instead Brady, who is set to leave his job as head of Arsenal’s youth academy next year, insisted that his old friend Giovanni Trapattoni can still surprise fans by leading Ireland to the 2014 World Cup finals.
The under-fire Italian is expected in Dublin this week to announce his squad for a crunch double-header which starts with a trip to Sweden on 22 March before a home fixture against Austria four days later.
If Ireland come away from those games with four points, the chance of making the play-offs is still very much alive, Brady, 57, said.
And as long as that is the case, Trapattoni and his staff deserve a chance to finish what they have started.
“My defence of Giovanni, Marco [Tardelli] and the management team as it is now is that the group is not over,” he told TheScore.ie. “We got a pasting by Germany and nobody wanted that to happen, but we also got two wins on the road.
“When I look at the team, I don’t see players who have given up on the manager. I see spirit there and they’re really trying.
“There is pressure on and probably if we don’t qualify, it will mean Giovanni leaving. But I wouldn’t rule out the fact that he might surprise people and get us into a playoff.”
He added: “Having seen what’s going on here, I think Giovanni knows that it’s qualification or else he will have to leave.
I don’t think the FAI will renew his contract if he doesn’t qualify and I think he knows that.
Brady, who won 72 Irish caps and is widely considered as one of the country’s finest players, has featured on speculative longlists of possible Irish managers.
Earlier this year Arsenal confirmed that he will step down as their academy director in May 2014, leaving the position which he first took up in 1996.
Brady explained that he is leaving because he would like a change of direction, and is adamant that he has no designs on a return to management.
“It was getting to a stage where I was managing a lot of people and I wasn’t doing the things that I enjoyed doing about the job: watching matches, talking to kids, talking to their parents.
“There’s been no falling out. I’m just leaving because I want a change of direction really.
“When you tell somebody that you really want to change, I think they realise that they better get somebody else in.
I’m not doing this so that I can go back and have another crack at management. I had my go at management and that was enough for me, so I don’t want to get involved. I don’t want to get involved with the Irish team.”
