TMCnet News
2006 YEAR OF THE ENGLISH FOOTBALLER(Daily Mail Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)JUST before halftime at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, a vision of 2006 stamped itself on the retina. With one of those spurts of activity that all great sides produce when they decide it's time to score a goal, Chelsea had just taken a 1-0 lead against Birmingham when John Terry rose to contest a looping ball with Emile Heskey. The Chelsea captain didn't beat his infamously lethargic opponent so much as humiliate him with a header that was athletic, aggressive and precise. This simple technical act radiated ambition and authority, and anyone looking for a symbol for this World Cup year will have noted it down as an example of the New England outshining the Olde. The age of Heskey and the nearly men is sliding out of view, and you don't have to be a John Bull patriot or a Don Quixote to believe this England football side is the best equipped to win a tournament since Terry Venables' team went out on penalties in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Two reasons: maturity, and individual talent, both of which Sven Goran Eriksson's squad have in abundance, despite the haunting memory of the loss to Northern Ireland and the spectre of red cards that hangs over Wayne Rooney and the increasingly irascible David Beckham. More troubling is England's now harrowing inability to cross the Rubicon of the really big knockout games. Italia 90, Euro 96, France 98, the Brazil World Cup quarterfinal in 2002 and the Portugal match in Lisbon at Euro 2004. This near-miss culture, dashing the nation's hopes on the rocks of wasted opportunity, implies a congenital weakness: a shortage not of courage so much as cunning. When it matters, England throw their spirit, their pent-up mother country dreams against the fortress of a Germany, Argentina or Brazil and are repelled. Why? Some say because English football is played with the heart and not the head. For all its passion and energy, it is technically and tactically inferior to the best the top countries have to offer. The entrenched pessimists will point to the recent England-Argentina friendly in Geneva, which was the perfect microcosm of how it might be for Eriksson's men in Germany. Against the most technically accomplished sides, it is still easy to imagine England being outpassed and outthought. But we also know that, at some stage, the marauding warriors of this England team will escape the siege and race down the field to smash and grab. Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen are not men to be subdued or bottled up all afternoon. Nor, for that matter, are Beckham, Ashley Cole, Gary Neville, Terry or Joe Cole, whose exuberance in a Chelsea shirt is persuading even us arch-sceptics that he can fill the Bermuda Triangle of England's left side. We may soon be able to erase this problem from the list of manpower issues, which includes the absence of a proven midfield 'holding' player and a reliable understudy to Paul Robinson in goal. Here is the most shocking statistic in English sport: it is 40 years since England reached the final of a major tournament, which is why the July 9 date of the Final in Berlin has such resonance. To today's iPod-wearing, mobileclutching consumers, 1966 might as well be 1066. There isn't a spin doctor alive who can cast England's 40 years of writhing as anything other than a baffling failure to deliver on the raging love for football you see across parks, schoolyards and stadiums almost every waking hour. Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, calls it 'a little bit now or never for England'. The World Cup isn't the only Michelin- starred offering in the sporting banquet of 2006, of course. And to imply otherwise is an insult to England's cricketers, who will defend the Ashes in Australia this winter, Andy Murray, who says his ambition is to reach the top 20 in tennis by the end of the year, and Andy Robinson's rugby union XV, who are emerging steadily from the chaos of the post-World Cup year. Nor would it be right to ignore the Ryder Cup at the K Club near Dublin in September, the Commonwealth Games and the Winter Olympics. Or the welcome harvest of big fights, with Joe Calzaghe working towards a career-defining battle with Jeff Lacy and Ricky Hatton lining up Arturo Gatti on the road to unification. Behind these two leaders of the pack, Amir Khan and Kevin Mitchell are scything down the opposition and should be watched each time they pull on gloves. This is also the year when the London Olympics of 2012 can either become a great shift in British social history or go down as another of New Labour's cockedup projects. Yes, it's that serious, even with six years to go. Already there is evidence the government think funding for medal-winning programmes is a luxury they can't afford. This reflects an old ideological prejudice and suggests that the line they peddled about the Olympics transforming school and grassroots sport is already turning into a lie. But until the spaceship descends in 2012, nothing can quite match the prospect of this fine England football team chasing glory in Germany. That will come a month or so after the opening of the new Wembley has sharpened memories of what happened under the old Twin Towers back in 1966 - a year which is now part nostalgia-mine, part enduring inspiration ( especially the classic red shirt, which speaks of a more innocent time, before grotesquely inflated sponsors' logos and rip-off prices). After the summer of the England cricket team, this is the year of the English footballer. You could write a book as thick as War and Peace on why England will lose a game of margins at the quarter or semi-final stage - but the fact remains that Rooney, Lampard, Gerrard, Owen and Joe Cole have the look of men on a mission, men for whom greatness is within reach. As Birmingham tried to escape Stamford Bridge without conceding a rugby score, an alternative form of entertainment was to marvel at the World Cup-winning potential of Lampard, Terry and Cole - or Lampsy, JT and Coley as they are known around the training ground - and to give silent thanks to the Champions League. The world's leading elite- club competition is turning a whole generation of elite English footballers from grafters into something more sophisticated. Everything Eriksson says in briefings suggests that he gave up long ago on the idea of England ever stroking the ball around like Argentina or Brazil, defending like Italy or plotting and plodding their way through the early rounds like Germany. There is an English Way, which involves intimidating opponents through force of spirit, moving the ball forward quickly without excessive elaboration in midfield and chasing games through tallyho counterattacking. On the other hand, Eriksson needs no reminding that he has abundant individual talent to unleash first against Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden, and here we find what many of us believe to be the crux of England's 2006 campaign. Picking the team is relatively easy, but can Eriksson now improve on his own record of two quarterfinal finishes? Is he sufficiently attuned to the English mentality to draw the best from this golden generation? If England are winning a semi-final, will the team surrender momentum the way they did in Japan and Portugal? Will he circle the wagons and make negative substitutions? My reservation about Eriksson has always been that he is a cautious coach in charge of a positive, dynamic team. His instincts are a mixture of Swedish and Italian, and may conflict with England's natural urges for a third tournament in a row, as they did against France in Lisbon, where he withdrew Owen and Rooney after 69 and 76 minutes respectively and sent on Heskey and Darius Vassell. An imponderable for the pub is how England would perform in Germany if the Football Association borrowed Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson for six months. The one outcome that is impossible to face is an inquest that identifies a lack of managerial ingenuity and drive as the reason England failed to win this World Cup. But the portents are good. Watching Terry, Lampard and Joe Cole on Saturday, an internal voice kept saying that immortality is within reach for these England players. Imagine how it felt to be them yesterday, as they woke to see 2006 on the dateline for the first time, with Germany calling. [email protected] Hatton KEY DATES 10 FEBRUARY 4 RUGBY UNION - England v Wales, Six Nations opener The 2005 Grand Slam winners are without Gavin Henson their hero from this fixture last season - and England scent revenge. MARCH 15 COMMONWEALTH GAMES Paula Radcliffe will run the 5,000m or 10,000m in Melbourne. Another gold in the bag, then, barring any Athens-style mishaps. APRIL 8 RACING - Grand National Champion jockey Tony McCoy looks to end his National jinx after being carried out by a stray last year while leading on Clan Royal. JUNE 10 FOOTBALL - England World Cup opener v Paraguay First steps on the road to immortality for Becks and Co. But bank on the usual nerve-jangler. JUNE 15 FOOTBALL - England v Trinidad and Tobago The last time England played a team this lowly in the rankings, it was Northern Ireland. Hmmm. JUNE 20 FOOTBALL - Sweden v England The Three Lions invariably become timid tomcats against the Swedes. Better hope qualification is already in the bag. JUNE 26 TENNIS Wimbledon starts Tim who? All hopes rest on Andy Murray now and won't he know it. JULY 9 FOOTBALL World Cup Final We can dream, can't we? SEPTEMBER 22 GOLF - Ryder Cup starts Ian Woosnam leads Europe at the K Club in County Kildare as the home side go for a hat-trick of wins. NOVEMBER 23 CRICKET - Australia v England, First Test starts Was last summer the start of an era of English domination or just a glorious flash in the pan? Brisbane will offer a few clues. |