So, England head home earlier than expected and once again everybody’s clamouring for the manager’s head. Continuity is key in football and to keep changing managers after World Cup disappointments just ignores the problem. England simply aren’t good enough to compete at international level.
We could rattle on for hours about why but it comes down to a few harsh home truths. Ball retention is absolutely imperative both at the top of club football and when you are representing you country. Fabio Capello has clearly tried to change the brutish English mentality and get his side comfortable at knocking the ball around, playing slow patient possession football, but the midfielders just kept giving the ball away. The philosophy is simple: if you’ve got the ball, the other team can’t score. And if you keep the ball, your opponents have to tire themselves out to win it back. If the likes of Frank Lampard were truly world class, they’d be able to locate a team mate with a crossfield ball.
Successive World Cup campaigns have been undermined by amateurish defending. Here, Capello was unlucky. Having a fit Rio Ferdinand available would have helped him as the Manchester United defender was comfortable on the ball as well as a cultured centre back, but his tournament didn’t even start. Bringing a clearly over-the-hill Jamie Carragher and gambling on the fitness of Ledley King demonstrated the dearth of quality English centre backs, but it was quite astonishing that both of those two and Matthew Upson were picked ahead of Michael Dawson, comfortably the best English defender in the last domestic season.
Regular readers will know I like to aim my fire at John Terry but he and Upson gave a display that wouldn’t even have graced park football yesterday. The gaps between the two of them were alarming, particularly when Terry was caught ridiculously out of position when a long punt forward from the goalkeeper sailed over his head. Upson thankfully thought better of bundling over Klose in the penalty area, but the damage was done by the German’s cool finish. Terry was trying to win the ball back high up the pitch again with Upson nowhere to be seen as Podolski exposed some gaping gaps to make it 2-0.
The talking heads will no doubt hound Capello out, but who would want the England job? Your players can’t kick with both feet, none of the top sides in the country have a nucleus of domestic talent and the media think it’s their job to destroy you. Until the laughably inept FA get a grip on the game in this country – and they might make a start by reforming our antequated coaching system – they’ll be plenty more bemused head-scratching by England managers in years to come.
Great post.
Englands problems run so much deeper than the manager. Both Capello and Sven were serial winners until they took on the England job. The dearth of talent is shocking.
There has been one constant over the years and that is technically limited players who are made to look good at club level by complimenting foreign players. Until the FA sorts out Burton and puts forward a plan (potentially one similar to what the Germans did 10 yrs ago) then the national team will remain a shambles.
No No it wasn’t our fault. It was the hand of Seth Blatter that did for us.
But why do we really care now? The Leagues are where the money and entertainment are. Make them worse to make National teams better? This is just another excuse. Most of the sides in the World Cup could not top most national leagues. So do we really want to harm our league for the sake of a possible shot every four years. I don’t
Good analysis. I think there’s a skewed perspective at work when y’all discuss the England team. One thing that’s glaringly clear to us foreigners when we monitor the transfer windows is the overvaluation of English players in comparison to — well, just about anybody. The most stunning example was a few summers back when Barcelona paid less for Henry than Spurs did for Bent. I think that many people hang their hats on how much England nationals command in the transfer market, when perhaps a better measure would be how in demand these players are in italy or Spain.
As for the squad, Cappello certainly has to come into scrutiny for some of his selections. Most glaring was the complete absence of a ball winning midfielder. The whole world is searching for their own Michael Essian, but certainly England had SOME talent that could have been tapped to play that role. I still don’t understand why Crouch wasn’t started against the USA, or why it took so long to get Dafoe into the mix. Having said all that, I agree that the problem is with the pool of available players rather than the coach.
For me, Capello’s handling of the Robert Green gaffe doomed his WC stint.
He could/should have done two things: bench Green and give him a plane ticket back to England at half time OR stick with Green throughout the entire tournament. The first action would send a clear message to the entire squad that failure is not acceptable and anything less that 100% means you’ll be going home before the Cup is even over. The second would show Capello’s solidarity with the squad, and give them lots of self-belief to go forward.
But instead he did neither. By changing keepers at the eleventh hour before the Algeria game showed to me, and I’m sure the players, that he just didn’t know what to do.
As he said himself: “The little things decide the results always.”
Spot on!! So much garbage being said since game. This was however, was spot on!!