The best soap opera on television last week didn’t feature cobbled streets, backstreet pubs or market square – it starred a veteran, bumbling soccer manager and a supporting cast of experts who picked at his bones on live television.

Yes, the Trap story was the must-see event of the week as the Italian with a command of English almost as bad as Bertie Ahern’s clung onto his job because we don’t have the money to get rid of him.
Which is sort of the same reason that we held on to Bertie for as long as we did, when you think of it.

But this man is not for turning – at least not until Denis O’Brien digs deep to pay his fare and expenses back to Italy. Or alternatively, until FAI chief executive John Delaney coughs up a fraction of his salary to help make ends meet.

So Trapattoni and his lovely assistant Manuela continue to perform their magic tricks on television – starting with how to make our World Cup prospects disappear and followed by how to make complete clowns out of a team that actually qualified for the last European Championships.

All the while back in studio, the other three-ring-circus are flexing their muscles, with Chippy Brady as the Trap ally between the deadly duo of Dunphy and Gilesy as they become more incandescent with rage every time the Boys in Green take to the field.

In fairness to Brady, he defends the indefensible like no other. He’s been a friend of Trapattoni since his playing days and part of the Irish set-up when he started, so it’s commendable that he would defend his old friend in his hour of need.

But his sterling efforts didn’t go unnoticed by Eamon the Rottweiler, who attacked from the start only to find he couldn’t get the proverbial ball past Chippy and onto Gilesy on the other side of Bill O’Herlihy’s studio.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.