Trapattoni pleased with 'fair' draw

Giovanni Trapattoni
12 April 2012

Republic of Ireland boss Giovanni Trapattoni hailed another positive result for his team after seeing them draw 0-0 with Croatia at the Aviva Stadium.

Ireland, who went into the friendly having won their previous four fixtures, came up against a Croatian team ranked ninth in the world and with a first XI which included Tottenham trio Luka Modric, Niko Kranjcar and Vedran Corluka.

The fact that the hosts managed to extend their unbeaten run against such opposition came as further encouragement to Trapattoni, and he said: "Croatia is a strong team - they are ahead of us in the rankings and they have important players who play in England, Germany, everywhere."

He added: "I had respect for this team - no fear, but respect - but I was also confident about our discipline, mentality and balance, which we showed this evening.

"We had many missing players and this is a positive result. I think maybe the draw is fair - Croatia had more possession and us less, but each team had only one or two chances."

Trapattoni admitted the Republic will need to show more cutting edge going forward in their forthcoming qualifying games, but was delighted to see a fifth successive clean sheet achieved.

"When the players are incisive we can make a difference. In qualifying we have to do this," Trapattoni said.

"But I am happy for this (another clean sheet). Before the game, when we prepare, I repeat the same lesson because when I was first here, two or three little situations were changing our results.

"The players understand me because I always show them when we make these type of mistakes. The team has improved very much in these situations."

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