An Irish solution to an English problem
Fabio Capello says he wants to hold onto his job and the English FA say they want two weeks to consider their options. But I think it will take rather more than 14 days of mature reflection, or even a change of gaffer, to cure the ills of our neighbours’ national team.
There’s no doubt that Capello’s credibility has been damaged by his side’s abysmal showing but I reckon he did enough over the course of the qualifying campaign to merit another shot at rebuilding the shattered confidence. The culture of disposability which sees managers come and go at the drop of a point could do with being challenged and, anyway, with Mr Mourinho currently unavailable, there’s no guarantee that any other candidate would do any better with the limited resources currently available.
In South Africa, it was much more a case of the players letting the manager down rather than vice versa, whether it was John Terry’s solo run off the pitch or Wayne Rooney’s failure to do the same thing on it. England have, at a stretch, two or three players who could be considered genuinely world -class. And if those game-changers under-perform – as Rooney and Gerrard did in South Africa – then the whole team’s chances of mounting a meaningful challenge collapse with them.
But that’s not the way the English media sell their boys to the world. Instead, we’re spun the myth of the golden generation, of the Premier League as the “best league in the world”, of the three lions as serious contenders to “go all the way”.
In short, expectation is almost always out of sync with reality. Of course, it was hardly a surprise to see this in the long, hype-filled build-up to the tournament but, remarkably, having slaughtered the team for their abject draw with Algeria, it was suddenly all-change again from the media after the only slightly more convincing win against pitifully poor Slovenia.
In fact, on the back of that game, I can’t recall one single English pundit, either in print or in studio who, not merely content with predicting that England would “kick on” by beating Germany, didn’t actively begin to contemplate the pleasing prospect of gaining revenge on Maradona and Argentina in the quarter-finals. Do they never learn?
Irish teams have traditionally been at their best as underdogs who exceed expectation. English teams have traditionally been at their worst as favourites who fail to live up to building. An Irish solution to an English problem might be as, Trapattoni would have it, for all associated with the Three Lions to start seeing themselves more as David than Goliath, an act of psychological self-trickery which would also have the inestimable added value of actually being true.
Meanwhile, on the back of the weekend’s recurring controversy, the momentum for the introduction of video technology is now so overwhelmingly universal that it’s surely only a matter of time before football’s powers that be finally consult their sundials and discover that, hey, it’s the 21st century and high time do the right thing.
In truth, there has never been any serious merit in the arguments of those who insist that video will kill the football star. Sepp Blatter’s obsession with retaining what he likes to call the game’s ‘human’ dimension is akin to some absurd echo of the archaic superstition which holds that the camera can steal a person’s soul. On the part of the ultimate blazer, it also comes across as an unconvincing attempt to convey a sense of deep-rooted connection with the so-called ordinary fans, as if the president of FIFA likes nothing better of a night in Zurich than to argue the toss down the pub after the latest refereeing howler.
But surely nothing brings the game into disrepute more than the fact that, implicit in its very governance, is a flaw which all too often has the double-whammy effect of penalising excellence and honesty and rewarding fluky or, worse, foul play. And it’s a problem made all the more lamentable because, while the simple solution already exists and, indeed, is instantly available to millions around the world, it is still denied to the one man who has the authority to ensure fairness on the field of play. The only thing we don’t need to see replayed is an argument which, as the rest of the world moves on, has gained nothing in relevance with years of wearying repetition.
