Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article
The better the results get the less I believe it. Not withstanding the attempt Alan Shearer is going to make to prove English football management has got nothing to do with tactics, personality, insight or judgement and is really just about being an ex decent footballer who can “command respect” for 2 minutes (as previously practised by his old shove-push partner Roy Keane 12 miles down the road from Toon Towers) the real interest this week was the international games.
In a similar style to the Shearer model lives Diego Maradona (or cheat of god) who has found out that having a club management record similar to Iain Dowie’s PL one is no help when little Bolivia are pulverising your 2010 WC favourites tag to death to the tune of 6-1. One can only marvel at how we can have a WC where Turkey and Portugal can’t draw England due to the fact they aren’t going to make it. First team to confirm their hotels, Australia, something for messes Viduka and Kewell to look forward to as they avoid all form of physical contact in 2009-10. I’m looking forward to it already.
However what I’m not looking forward to it’s the year long over hyping of England’s chances that is guaranteed to be a mainstay of the sports media from the moment we dispatch the mighty Andorra at Wembley. 12 painful months of delusion topped off with the intertwined drama of the Beckham soap opera. As we speak betting firms have a full list of medical conditions to bet on which the special teams one will fall victim to (I’m putting a fiver on Alzheimer’s, which means he will be in better shape to contribute than he was in 2002 and 2006). Here’s an idea, lets pick the squad on your ability to play 90 minutes of football and leave Mr Posh at home!!
Now I assume that amongst my loyal band of readers there is a growing belief in the Capello magic. Five wins out of five, Zagreb and all that, a certain spring in the player’s step, even when they are made to wear collared white tea towels. To be fair, it’s certainly being stress free (strange but it’s the same with Leeds, the less stressed it is the more it worries me), lacking in any real drama in this qualifying period. Poor scribes, no-one to personality assassinate. And yet there lingers something loosely called the “something isn’t right” factor.
Ask yourself this, what, apart from the McClaren factor (still say he got a raw deal off the press) was wrong with England when Capello rode in? A goalie with suspect big game temperament, the right-back slot available to anyone who wanted it, a left back temperamental in form and style, centre-backs picked on who they were not how they played, the right-side midfield issue, the left-side midfield issue, the Frank and Steven can’t play together factor, the what is Rooney’s best position question, what to do with Joe Cole, where are the goalscorers and finally last but not least, who leads this bunch of retards?
Fast forward 18 months, what’s changed? The goalie is even more suspect in the big games now its Calamity James and not Rickett Robinson. Brown or Johnson for right-back, come back Hargreaves all is forgiven. Ashley is still a serial knob-head (is every England press conference for the next 10 years going to include an appeal not to upset Mr Cole as booing puts him off his adultery), Ferdinand and Terry are still getting picked despite the fact they are in truth half-dead from the numerous injuries they carry. Lennon or Bentley, a question for Spurs surely rather than England, equally if Downing is the answer to the left-side question then the question was whose the shittist player in the squad. Lampard and Gerrard not only still get in each others way they also have to avoid the bouncer put in the team to keep them from standing on the same blade of grass, Mr G Barry. Rooney still spends too much time in our half, fetching the ball, drifting off to Burger King, lunging in at passing defenders and trying to teach European referees the scouse for cunt! The J Cole question has changed, its now whose daft idea was it to let him pundit ala Shearer. As for goalscorers, well obviously with 9 league goals this season Carlton Cole is up there with the Owen’s, fair play to Heskey, took him 6 years but he finally realised against Slovakia the way to score a goal was not to even get a touch of the ball and we also have the Crouch scissor-kick machine, quaking in their boots at that striking line up is the big 8 of world football!! That just leaves the captain question which I always feel would be better decided by seeing who can read a game well rather than giving it to the one who most resembles Terry Butcher after repeatedly head-butting a wall.
Now don’t get me wrong, of course I’d like England to be contenders in South Africa, if only for the reason I’d love to see England in a WC final again before I die. But asking me to believe in this lot as 2010 winners, no chance. Major surgery was what was needed after McClaren and it hasn’t happened. Capello is riding on hope and a renewed confidence, the fault lines are still there and I fear come June 2010 they are going to fracture big time.
Still I’ll be watching.
