This piece contains one or two sentences borrowed from a piece I wrote six years ago just after we’d been beaten 4-1 by Germany at the World Cup in South Africa. Some of it is still relevant now and no doubt will be in fifty years when our Grandchildren are watching us lose to The Maldives in World Cup 2066
Well, that was shit. I knew there was anti-European sentiment in the country but I had no idea it extended to the England team. That performance was the worst thing I’ve ever watched. I’ve seen England draw with Algeria when we couldn’t string two passes together. I saw England get absolutely stuffed by Germany at the same World Cup and this was worse. I watched England lose to Holland with a goal by a bloke who should’ve been sent off and this was worse. I’ve seen us lose to Germany, on penalties twice in semi-finals and this was worse.
Never has being an England fan felt quite so pointless. Every time they jet off to a tournament in their new suits with the nations hopes pinned firmly on them, you think to yourself “this time, I won’t get drawn in. This time, I won’t fully commit so that when it ends in ignominy and embarrassment, at least I won’t feel quite as desolate”. And then they arrive at a tournament and in the press conferences, they all say how happy they are to be there and how the mood is really good. And you start to think ‘maybe this time’. And they play OK in the Group stages and even though they don’t qualify top, there are signs that things are coming together and you feel a slight sense of optimism. And then last night happens.
You’d think that surely now, as they sit in the airport waiting for their (hopefully massively delayed) flight home, the players in the England team know that they’re nowhere near as good as they thought they were. You’d hope that with their humiliation at the hands of Iceland, the realization might have finally dawned on them that even though they’re on multi-million pound contracts, collectively, we are, as a footballing nation worse than Iceland. Worse than a country with the same number of people as Croydon. Yes, Iceland were immense. They were, fitter and had more imagination, more heart, more team spirit and more skill. But surely our best eleven should be able to beat their best eleven. Shouldn’t they? Apparently not.
I know all the excuses and I’m not going to revisit them here. But something’s going very wrong. My friend asked me last night if England were cursed and I thought ‘we’ve looked for the causes to our multiple failures in all sorts of places. Perhaps we should consider the supernatural. We’ve tried everything else, maybe a witchdoctor might be the answer. Why don’t we sacrifice a chicken and spread it’s entrails over the centre circle at Wembley? Maybe that will help’.
As for Roy, he resigned straight after the game. He read from a statement that sounded like he’d spent some time over it but he insisted he wrote straight after the final whistle. Personally, I’d like to have heard what he thought about that performance but like pretty much everything the FA does, it was mismanaged. Wayne Rooney apologised and Joe Hart apologised but no-one really explained what happened. Possibly because they can’t. Who could explain that?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Through all the dismal performances by players, managers, coaching staff etc over the past 20 years the common thread in the failure-narrative is the FA itself - a decrepit, dysfunctional organisation that consistently has promoted its own commercial interests over the progressive development of the game of football in England (those well known arguments about the pitifully low numbers of coaches at and support for grass roots football, school etc). The FA has consistently insisted on putting into its squads players who are popular with advertisers and sponsors regardless of whether their form, intelligence, technical ability and capability to adapt to playing demands that are different to their club role merits their caps. The starry-eyed hype of over-indulged morons who look good in an M&S suit has, over the years, encouraged the ego-mania, cliques and factions which have prevented the establishment of proper team spirit and tactical cohesion which you need to create and call on quickly in tournaments. One day I hope the story of how much damage has been done to England's chances in past tournaments by Steven Gerrard and his chippy, anti-London cliques,and by the gambler-cliques, WAG-cliques and so on will be told. Basically, there will be no change on the pitch until the FA's board and executive layers are ripped apart and put back together for the sake of football first and last. And, finally, if you build an England team on Spurs players, what else do you expect...?
Post a Comment