One of my passions is football. I played it for 40 odd years. I did not win much just the odd in house tournament I organised, well if you can't win those what can you win. I was always resolute in defence, took no prisoners if they still had the ball. I was Captain most of the time, cos I led by example. It even cost me a broken leg eventually and plaster up to my groin for 6 months, but not before I had inflicted similar in fever pitched battles. I even subjected my family to the worse breakfast service in our 2nd week holiday in Minorca, after I had brought down the Head Waiter in a cloud of dust at a local stadium where I organised the tourists versus the hotel staff England v Spain, and we won, but the Head Waiter was not a happy chappy nor a happy signor.
So playing football, watching Tottenham Hotspur and England has been an anual event of hope and despair an emotional roller coaster. Yes, you can't win them all (why not), but it is nice to win sometimes.
The trouble with football today is that since Sky TV bought the TV rights to show games and then sell them around the world with the Premier League, professional footballers have become over paid prima donnas, achieving celebrity status often without delivering the goods. after all we are talking about a job here that is 90 minutes a week if that, for kicking a round thing in between two white posts and a crossbar and you have 10 mates helping you, with a similar number opposing you. For that you can command £100,000 a game if you are any good, or even if you are rubbish some weeks and fail to perform for just 90 minutes a week. Compare that with any other job, huh !!!
But football is in my blood and without a blood transfusion will be there till I die. There are many in football that have the passion to succeed, there are many that just try to do enough to get by, like in any walk of life.
Today's blog is prompted by what happened last night in South Africa, the World Cup, where England played their first game in their league group. Not since 1966 have we won the world cup. In that final we had certain players who literally run their socks off for their country and their Manager Sir Alf Ramsey. We had brilliant players, Gordon Banks was probably the best goalkeeper in the world, Bobby Moore the best defender in the world, Alan Ball the youngest and best midfield dynamo in the world. They did not need huge sums to play, they had huge hearts. Alas the latter two are already dead. Will their surviving team mates, 3 lions on a shirt, see the new England win the same competition. I hope so, they are among the richest in the world, so maybe they should beat the world.
Last night's not so hopeful verdict:
The Green Green Grass of Home
Once again a nation expects. The flags are flying in every street. In a game we gave to the world, we now compete with the world’s best. But now we watch in hope and often despair, supporting England is a roller coaster ride every game. We used to be the best, we used to produce the best, but now the teacher cannot beat the up and coming pupil.
We used to produce the best goalkeepers the world had ever seen, Gordon Banks, Ray Clemence, Peter Shilton. Now the need and the greed necessary to survive every week in the Premier League means all our top clubs have foreign goalkeepers, and we are left to chose from relegated or near relegated clubs for that vital roll between the posts. We chose goalkeepers who week in week out are used to picking the ball out of the back of the net. Yes every goalkeeper can make a howler, and when they do it is calamitous because they are the last line of defence. Indeed England goalkeepers have made gross mistakes on the world’s stage before and cost their Manager their jobs. However, Green’s mistake last night allowing a long range hope full punt from Dempsey to give USA an equaliser was the same mistake as his name and his colour shirt. It was a schoolboy error not out of the coaching manuals. How any defender could have confidence in him thereafter is unbelievable just like his handling. Yes football is a team game, but some positions are more vital than others. It is no good saying he redeemed himself in the 2nd half with one save that after all was really saved by the woodwork to where he deflected the shot.
In the qualifiers we seemed to have a team select. Once we qualified that plan was, it seems, thrown out of the window. However on form Joe Hart should be in front of the sticks, on experience and because he can be more a hero than a clown James should be number 1. Green should get the next plane home. He has cost us 2 points, he and he alone. He should also take his West Ham colleague Upson with him, both of them got West Ham where they are today, scrapping survivors of a relegation battle.
So, like any England fanatical supporter born out of patriotism, yes I question team and squad selection and logic. Yes, take off Milner who had been ill and was having a torrid 30 minutes against the USA advancing right. But, why bring on a right sided Wright Phillips to patrol the left. Also, as hard working and grafting as Heskey is, he cannot score goals, not with his head or his feet. He is a striker who cannot score goals, so pick him for lay offs and assists, but that means one of your strikers will not score, that leaves only one other. My other player singled out for criticism is Lampard. He can do it week in week out for Chelsea, but when he puts on an England shirt, well his free kick in front of goal 2nd half was more worthy of Twickenham. The guy is just off target, that is his middle name.
Contrast Lampard’s contribution with Captain Courageous Gerrard, who was there covering every blade of grass making vital blocks in defence and scoring the early goal with a true penetrative run and class, that should have eased all our nerves and those of his team mates including Green. Stevie G led by example it’s a great pity most of his team mates could not see it, like the viewers could.
Football is a team game, USA showed us that in defence and midfield resilience and with a far superior goalkeeper from Everton. England did not have the craft or the class, world class, to unpick them again after Gerrard’s superb lift for his country.
Rooney was too short and too deep, crosses across the USA box were not met. The Crouch solution to that problem was 80 minutes too late, Capello take note.
In truth we do not have enough World Class players to win a World Class competition, only a handful of our players would feature in any world side. We are good at going forward down the flanks, especially the right, but we have no converters in the centre. Only Gerrard, Ashley Cole, Johnson and Terry can hold their heads high after that game. Lennon, Heskey, Rooney worked hard. Misses were plenty. 4 players playing really well out of 11 is not good enough and the result is a 1-1 draw against USA, not against Brazil, Argentina, Spain. No against USA.
If we are to improve and we must to succeed in this tournament for the 11th time in 44 years, Capello has to hit on a winning formula team selection, as Sir Alf Ramsey did.
He has a problem with the goalkeeper, midfield and strikers. His substitutions were dictated to him against the USA. Next time he will have to make 3 changes during the game if we cannot find the net again.
Gareth Barry if fit, should replace Lampard, and Joe Cole should be on the left. We need class on the grass. Up front Crouch should partner Rooney, with Defoe ready to come on for the last 20 minutes. Ramsey used to say to his engine room in Peters Ball and Charlton to burn themselves out and they did. We need a similar engine room. In Gerrard we have a start, Lennon needs to up the pace and confidence he had before injury for Spurs. Barry should steady midfield and it’s balance with his left foot in front of the back four. Joe Cole can wriggle his way through from the left, leaving Ashley Cole to forge down the line. Hopefully King’s knee will allow his return, and Hart should be given the job of keeping a clean sheet, because he is the form man with the non Teflon gloves.
Onward and Upward England. At least you did not lose, you could have. Let this be an eye opener Mr Copello, lessons to be learned, quickly and decisively.
as published on on BBC 606
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