I know I’m not the only one who isn’t really looking forward to the World Cup. But your reasons will be different from mine. I don’t enjoy tournaments which feature home nations – too tense, too much hoopla. And I enjoy ones with only England in even less – the loneliness leaves them even more exposed than they already were. Oh, to be in 1998, in the summertime, with a beer.
There have been so many World Cups now, and they aren’t getting better. This is to contrast them both with the Olympics and the European Championships. World Cup piles onto World Cup and each one squashes flat beneath the last like the ingredients in some kind of ever-accumulating Double Whopper.
Scotland aren’t there, of course, and Craig Levein gets his tenure off to an unpromising-sounding start against the Czech Republic having had almost no time to gather his thoughts. He should, if he keeps things calm and relatively quiet, steer Scotland into a play-off place without too much trouble. His successors ten years down the line will have an easier time of it: this is the muddy bottom of Scotland’s lean period, and it’s Levein’s unenviable task to steer the team out of it.
The England situation is depressing for different reasons.
This is still Ericksson’s 2001 team in many respects. John Terry and Wayne Rooney have arrived, but – and this is just astonishing – with the sole exception of David Seaman, every member of the starting XI, and two out of the three substitutes, is still a regular Premiership player or playing in Serie A (or Owen Hargreaves would be, barring injury). Scholes and Carragher have retired from international football, sadly, and Nicky Barmby is no longer considered a serious candidate for selection. Otherwise, it’s very much the same names.
When you consider that 5-1 squad absentees Lampard and Barry had both made their England debuts prior to the Munich game, it becomes clear that for the core established squad, 2010 is the last chance to win an international trophy. I think 2004 and 2006 were the years for these players. It’s probably too late now.
Always with the injuries, England. Terry’s back problems, Ferdinand’s back problems, Ashley Cole’s broken ankle, Aaron Lennon, Theo Walcott, Glen Johnson, Joe Cole, Michael Owen.. Owen might not have been a major candidate for the plane, but this point is not about him. It’s about the way England have gone into tournaments with what would be a very serious team, if fit, but one in fact hastily recruited from the squad’s unfashionable outer regions. Sometimes it can work – Danny Mills was an effective stand-in for Gary Neville in 2002, and.. no, there weren’t any successful stand-ins in 2004 and 2006, were there?
Too many front pages: say no more, really. All that started with Lampard and Terry at the airport a week and a day after Munich (because the core of this team have been around more or less since the foundation of Blogger) and there’s usually been something or other on the boil ever since. Frankly, were the UK press less nosey, prurient and possessed of such peculiar priorities, we’d neither know nor care. But it’s still depressing.
The fringe players: I wish I didn’t count Jermaine Defoe in this bracket, but he’s only two years younger than Michael Owen, and the gap between the careers of the two men – to say nothing of other members of the squad – is impossible to ignore. His Spurs partner Peter Crouch is a little over a year younger than Owen, and the same comments apply. The main hope has to be that Defoe and Crouch continue on this dream-like season of theirs (surely the one which will define them) and carry all that confidence into the World Cup. And Crouch is no certainty to travel. Injuries have robbed us of what might have been a thrilling season-long duel for Beckham’s spot on the right wing between Lennon and Walcott: all we can hope for now is that one or other of them is fit. Let’s skip over the goalkeeping situation.
The Good News: Carlton Cole has grown up, and is a kind of prozac every time one reflects on what’s happened to Michael Owen. Tom Huddlestone, but he’s injured, of course… And Capello doesn’t seem to understand the idea that England might perform less well when essential players are missing. It’s the kind of blind spot I don’t remember an England manager having in the past, save for Ericksson during his early, experimental line-ups (Chris Powell – remember his nutmegging Guardiola?).
No, the real good news is this: barring something from left of field, the rebuilding England will need to do will be done by Capello, whose contract, let’s not forget, continues until the end of the European Championship in 2012. Who, given how consummately well he has done so far (I called him a “More Than Mind Games manager” when he was appointed, and he hasn’t let me down) would you rather have the job?
You are right it is the Eriksson team- I’d say a couple of things about that though- one of the things being that it really reveals how much of management is not about selecting a team but about working with a team once you are out there in the competition. its the part we can’t see so underrate but the thing is Eriksson and Capello acheived things with this England team whereas McClaren did not- something to ponder when it comes to the press campaign that x makes it and y does not.
Secondly its odd but I think back to the early 2000s and remember frustration at players not being selected: three who I’d mention are Woodgate, King and Bowyer. All three have for various reasons fallen away. You mention Mills, he was only 26 in 2004. So many of the young hopes of the last ten years have flattered to deceive- Micah Richards might now be coming into the same camp.
Thirdly there has been a subtle generational change if you think about it. The Hoddle 1998 to Eriksson 2006 team were based around Manchester United’s youth team- Scholes, Beckham, Neville, P. Neville (most underappreciated player in England), Butt- bar Beckham that set of characters has all now gone and I wonder whether England are not poorer for not having that cohesive set of successful guys who had come through the same youth academy together. Whatever effect, losing that group must have an effect.
Fourthly- ever since 2000 they’ve all taken the choice to play 4 at the back not 3. 1996-8 and possibly with a revival in Keegan’s Southgate in midfield reign was the era of 3 at the back and christmas trees etc, now it seems to be 4.
There is more but I can’t remember it. Good article.
“P. Neville (most underappreciated player in England),”: yes, if there’s a full back crisis, why isn’t he a contender?
P.S. I watched the West Brom game the other day – they had a Scots midfielder who looked handy. Sporran? Some such name anyway.
Definitely Dearieme- for me he is the utility player who should be England’s 23rd on the plane- much better than say Jenas because you can play him after an injury crisis at right back, left back and centre midfield.
Can I just say what a burst of nostalgia this Neville v Jenas discussion is giving me. I fear it’s about as much use in South Africa as Finney v Matthews, but I’m enjoying it all the same.
I’m enjoying the assumption that England will get far enough to be exposed to an injury crisis.
They already have made it far enough to be exposed to an injury crisis..
oh we always have an injury crisis- come on dearieme, the next few months are the metatarsal moment of every English world cup.
James you are far too optimistic- afterall a couple of metatarsals and Jenas could be in the squad!
What about Joe Cole? I don’t care if he is out of form. He MUST go. He’s the only person who has been injured whose stock hasn’t risen whilst he’s been away.
England’s squad looks so much stronger with Cole, Johnson and Hargreaves.
RCM
In the Egypt game, the only midfielder whom Capello didn’t replace was Barry. All three replacements proved to be improvements. And as for the beanpole – well done that man.