Age of athlete may end era of great footballers

ONE CROWDED week has flown by at the speed of light and one wonders where have all the superstars gone?

The European Championship has produced some captivating contests but relatively few individual performances of exceptional merit.

Netherlands and Germany are in action today and they serve to illustrate the point effectively.

Their 1-1 draw in Oporto on Tuesday may have been misleading, but if the contest served to highlight any one issue, it was surely the absence of a player of genius in either team.

Several considerations might well have had too big an influence to allow for the game to blossom and for an individual to indulge in any extravagance. Here there was no sign of a larger-than-life character ready to upset the pecking order in the pantheon of international football; no Maradona, Pele, Platini no Beckenbauer or Moore.

Defeat in the opening match in such a competitive group Czech Republic and Latvia are also involved might well have been disastrous to future prospects. And the history between the two is too complicated to allow for any improvisation or to encourage any urge to gamble.

So it is possible the Netherlands or Germany will yet emerge as a team capable of playing with more flair and with an element of imagination, however unlikely that might be. There was precious little of either commodity in evidence in the beautiful Dragao Stadium first time out.

An inspired man wrote in 1881: "The age of great men is going, the epoch of the anthill, of life in multiplicity, is beginning." Could he have been referring to football?

A fanciful thought, obviously, but look at the Dutch and their curious lack of conviction for 45 minutes of the match. They played the ball across the defensive and midfield lines with such persistence that one wondered whether they were ready to settle for a scoreless game.

It seemed as if they had not realised that in order to score a goal they had to surrender possession. They behaved as if retaining the ball was more a priority than creating a scoring chance for Van Nistelrooy.

How they could have done with any one of the great players of the recent past.... Johan Cruyff, of course, Marco van Basten, Ruud Krol, Ari Haan, Ruud Gullit.

Sure they played with more energy and drive in the second-half as they fought to retrieve the game after Thorsten Frings had put Germany in front. But they were so lacking in improvisation that one longed for Dennis Bergkamp and one wondered whether he might not have given them 30 minutes of inspiration.

Bergkamp might not be physically able now for 90 minutes of intensive football, but his natural gifts are so rare and so obviously lacking in a pedestrian Dutch side they should drive him back and forth from matches in a limo if he no longer wanted to spend six weeks in camp.

Likewise the Germans. Where was the midfield improvisation of a previous generation? Had they a leader like Beckenbauer, a midfield general like the imperious Netzer with his huge arsenal of passes, long and short, a linkman with the elusiveness and constructive instincts of Overath?

And wingers... where were the wingers ? Johnny Rep and Rob Rensenbrink?

The Germans were just as predictable as the Dutch, they played as if running on railway lines. They were so one dimensional, we pined for a little variety. There has been a disappointing lack of innovation in the tactical approach to date.

Coaches talk of flat back fours and diamond formations in midfield but never of a desire to encourage a spirit of adventure or to gamble by putting more emphasis upon construction than destruction.

The focus is almost exclusively focused on teamwork, on enhancing the collective strength rather than encouraging individualism.

France, with an almost religious zeal is offering the sublime Zidane a constant supply of the ball, are the clear exceptions.

These are early days, however, and there have been encouraging signs that this championship will yet identify others of exceptional ability. Perhaps it will be one or either of the Swedish pair, Henrik Larsson or Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who will go on to dominate this competition as the superstars of the past.

Perhaps it will be the precocious Wayne Rooney, the animated Prso, the subtle Valeron, the flamboyant Cristiano Ronaldo. It would be nice to think so.

Yet there is so much attention paid to conditioning, to the physical preparation, to the subjugation of that which has not been programmed that one suspects we are not too far removed from the day of the athlete as opposed to the footballer.