England out of Euro 2008
In the not to so distant past England finally seemed to be on the path to its best days of football. Two 3-0 nil victories at home, and Russia to face on the road. Expectations were high. But Guus Hiddink seemed to have not read the script and put ice cold water from Volga on the flaming manes of the English Lions. All was lost. Surely, a team that had grounded the mighty English would beat the poor Israeli’s. But over the last decade and a half, Israel has shown the world that talent and resources really do not count for too much if you have heart. And thus, England’s destiny was back in its own hands; draw with Croatia, the group leaders, and go merrily singing, dancing and drinking beer to Switzerland.
But on this fateful day, Mclaren had a fit of amnesia or something and promptly forgot that if Gerrard and Lampard played together they seem more like petulant children arguing about their playing positions rather than actually playing. The excellent Gareth Barry, who had combined brilliantly with Gerrard in the centre of the midfield in the last few matches, suddenly did not know where to pass. Of course, the flying wingers, ‘am-better-than-Becham-SWP and ‘can-play-on-the-left-Joe Cole did add to the mess, with the latter marginally better than the former. Which is not saying much! The defence ravaged by injuries and suspensions was playing together for the first time and if combined with the one-match old goal keeper seemed a recipe for leaking goals.Why England on their home ground would play 4-5-1 (or was it 4-3-3), I failed entirely to understand. Of course, Mclaren could illuminate us on that. Or maybe he will point to the fact that England scored 2 goals and that they gave away 3 was just bad luck due to defensive injuries.
England actually does have very decent players. None of their players are truly world class, in the league of a Kaka or Zidane (no, really no, Gerrard, Lampard & Rooney do not fall in the same category) but most of them are in the better-than-average category. What they needed is a coach who understands their strengths and designs his strategy on it. Football has gone well past the days when you put your best players on the pitch and expected that they deliver. One needs to have a plan and keep refining it over time. With players having limited period with the national team to train these strategies cannot be conjured overnight and perfected. Sadly, Mclaren never seemed to have one.
Hopefully, after this defeat we will see the hugely inflated egos of the English players shriveling as if they were dipped into liquid nitrogen or something and the reams of paper wasted on elucidating the talents of Lampard, Gerrard and co kept to a minimum. Thats really is not wishing for a lot, rather than something like England qualify for Euro 2008, is it?
