A Sequel That's Sure To End Badly...

Sequels are a bad idea. The Naked Gun trilogy is as good a testament to this as any. The original in the series, a film which should be seen as a comedic masterpiece, has been devalued by two sequels which culminated in a starring role for Anna Nicole Smith in the final installment. Football management runs something along the same lines. On the basis of his decision to return as Italy’s national team manager, somebody should have told this to Marcello Lippi.

The news that Lippi has returned to manage Italy seems like a bad idea from the off. If the man had decided to leave well enough alone, the likelihood is he would never have to pay for another pint of bitter in Italy again. The after-dinner speaking circuit in Italy was his oyster. And presumably he could have gone for the proverbial big pay day with any number of major European or Saudi Arabian clubs.

What is it that makes a manager return to a stomping ground where they previously enjoyed success? It can’t be that they believe that they can repeat the trick, when a startling amount of evidence points to the contrary. Lippi isn’t the first high profile Italian manager that has attempted to recapture glory with a former team; Think Trapattoni at Juventus in the early ‘90’s, Capello at Milan in 1998 and Ranieri at Valencia in 2004, none of which ended happily.

Of course Italian football management isn’t unique with its list of culprits. Step forward Louis van Gaal at Barcelona in 2002, Bobby Robson at PSV in 1998, Hector Cuper at Mallorca in 2005 and erm, Mike Walker for an anticlimactic return to Norwich City in 1996. Of course the example everyone cites is Kevin Keegan at Newcastle but perhaps it’s still too early to judge despite he himself admitting: "That team was one of the best of the last 20 years. Nothing like it will ever happen again."

Like Keegan at Newcastle, the Italy squad that Lippi will inherit is a far different proposition to the one he left behind first time around. The crop which at that time was probably at its peak, is now over the hill. One of his major tactical dilemmas at the time was how to fit Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti into the same team. No such dilemmas now. The team’s current creative force is Antonio Cassano. Worse still, these days they’re looking for their goals to come from Luca Toni.

Part of Lippi’s choice must have been that Italy will easily qualify for the next World Cup from a group where the sternest competition will likely be provided by away trips to Bulgaria and Montenegro. Italy's trip to Dublin during that campaign might even prove tricky if Al Italia don't resurrect their flight from Rome on Tuesday mornings. Despite all that it’s still hard to see the logic behind a return to the national team. Did he like it that much the first time round? Does he not care for happy memories and free ice-cream? Did he consult Sven Goran Erikson who advised him to go for a highly paid part-time position?

Perhaps Lippi, like every other manager that makes a return to a former glory-ground, did so for his own reasons, which we will never truly understand. Maybe there is no one explanation for the lunacy of trying to relive the happiness of old. And you can’t dispel the notion that the managers who do return don’t give a monkeys about ruining their reputation or achieving any success and that the opportunity merely provides a good way out of an unemployed patch.

Despite my overriding scepticism, I long for all manner of comebacks and sequels. On more than one occasion during the Steve Staunton era, I prayed that Jack Charlton might once again take the ropes of the Irish team, unearth a crop of third generation Irish players we hitherto presumed were Brazilian and lead us to the holy land of a World Cup second round. But then I’m reminded of my original thesis on sequels; just as with the Naked Gun, Ireland under Jack Charlton were a comedic masterpiece.