David Forde has revealed how Giovanni Trapattoni would confiscate newspapers from Ireland players to stop them reading ‘player ratings’.
The former Ireland goalkeeper made his international debut under the veteran Italian manager in 2011 and was third choice at the Euro 2012 finals in Poland.
Forde continued to play under Martin O’Neill but was a controversial eleventh hour omission from the Euro 2016 squad in France.
The Galway man, 39, announced his retirement from football earlier this month and is focusing on his new company ‘Pathfinder Coaching and Development’.
According to Forde, he works with people on ‘mentoring, self-esteem, self-worth and psychological and emotional well-being’.
But it was the lengths Trapattoni went to to stop negative thoughts entering the mind of his players that helped trigger Forde’s interest in this particular field.
Forde said yesterday: “He could clearly see that players were reading papers.
“And he could see that ratings were actually affecting the psychological and emotional well-being in certain individuals and the impact it was having on their performance.
“We were up in Malahide one day after a game and he just bundled up all the papers and threw them over his head!
“He said in 40 years he never read a newspaper. I don’t know how true that was, but there were newspapers everywhere.
“He said it wasn’t about what you (reporters) were actually writing, it was about the influence of external sources on performance levels.
“That was a huge learning curve for me when I started to understand the whole symbology of that gesture. It was huge in terms of team dynamics.”
Former Millwall stalwart Forde credits Trapattoni, now 80, as one of the biggest influences in his career.
“He was a phenomenal man, the way he conducted himself, the respect he had for himself, the respect he had for his players,” he added.
“The way he owned the space was phenomenal to watch. There were times where I had a couple of intimidating conversations with him coming back from games.
“Some heated, some not so heated, the passion, the love of the game - he loved dealing with people. He was a mentor.”
By his own admission, Forde’s career was a roller-coaster but his days with Ireland were always his proudest.
“It felt like Everest at times,” he said, assessing his 20-year spell in the game with
Galway, West Ham, Derry, Cardiff, Millwall and Cambridge and some loans in between.
“My career was always that sense of trying to claw at something and get to the top.
“It always felt like a recovery mission - a recovery team on Everest at times, falling down ravines, someone rescuing me and bringing me back together.
“I was my own worst enemy at times. It's been some journey but my peak, my goal and my dream was always to play for Ireland.
“If I only got one cap I’d be lit, but here I am today with 24 and having represented my country as a No 1 goalkeeper.
“I’d have bit your hand off for that, absolutely taken it clean off and probably the rest of you as well.”
** David Forde will be honoured at Aviva Stadium at Ireland v Switzerland next Thursday. Secure your seat via www.fai.ie/tickets **
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