Behind you....
It’s international time again as I have a quick club v
country debate and switch on to supporting England for the duration of Euro
2012. Note that I say the duration of
the tournament and not the duration of England’s participation in the
tournament which I feel may not be the full distance.
So, how did we get here….. well, we qualified in pretty
straight forward fashion with the issues all coming at the end of the
qualification games. Wayne Rooney got
more ambitious and instead of shagging grannies and prostitutes, decided to
shag the whole country when he managed to get sent off in Montenegro when we
were 2-1 up and only needing a draw to ensure qualification. As brainless sending offs go it was really
right up there. We had the question of
how many games he’d get banned for and it was only 2 so we at least have him
available for one game.
Fabio Capello was worried at the time but he wasn’t soon
afterwards as John Terry managed to get him to resign. Terry got charged with racially abusing Anton
Ferdinand, brother of Terry’s former England centre half partner Rio Ferdinand
and then the fun all started. The FA
stripped him of the captaincy, Capello got the hump over their meddling in what
he saw as a football matter and quit. To
be honest I don’t blame Capello for sticking to his principles but the FA
brought this issue upon us by being half-arsed when they should have removed
Terry from the national team until his name was cleared (or not).
Post-Capello, we then had the horrifying spectacle of the media
collectively wanking themselves into a frenzy over Harry Redknapp’s credentials
as the next England manager until someone actually studied the facts and
realised that he didn’t actually have any credentials at all aside from being
able to handle prima donna footballers… oh yeah, and Rio and Wayne like him… a
former England player and someone who is banned for the next two meaningful
matches.
If you had to choose between the media and the FA to appoint
the next manager, it would be like choosing the method of your own
execution. The FA proved they were
ultimately where the power lies and chose Roy Hodgson who to me was a pretty
uninspiring choice but when I read the CV, I realised that on paper anyway, he
was a good choice. As we know though,
nothing is won on paper…
The domestic season was over before Roy got hold of the
England job and selected a squad which was already shorn through injury of Jack
Wilshere and Jack Rodwell – two of the promising youngsters who had been making
a breakthrough under Capello, in response to the call for youth after our
abysmal World Cup in 2010. Danny
Welbeck, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Andy Carroll and Phil Jones got the call from
Roy but that was it as far as youngsters were concerned. There was all the usual mob who are decent in
the Premier League but have let us down time and again when it mattered
(Lampard, Barry, Terry, Gerrard, Johnson, Rooney etc) as well as players who
never really do anything at League level (Milner, Downing).
There wasn’t Rio Ferdinand who two days before the squad was
announced must have died when he heard his manager Alex Ferguson saying that he
wasn’t fit enough to play a game every 4 days.
Predictably, all the media wanted to talk about was Rio not being in the
squad and the John Terry racism issue.
Fucking hell it’s boring. On the
one hand it seem to be that Teflon Terry strikes again – he shags Wayne
Bridge’s ex and Bridge leaves the England team, he gets stripped of the
captaincy – Capello resigns from managing the England team, he allegedly
racially abuses Anton Ferdinand – Rio gets left out of the England team. On the other hand, in terms of Rio and
England, Terry probably did him a favour because no one would have even been
talking about Rio for England if the alleged racism hadn’t taken place. Rio is injury prone and past it and hadn’t
played for England for over a year and has lost that pace which enabled him to
make up for his more casual moments. From
a footballing point of view, Terry and Ferdinand together would be too slow. The FA and Hodgson didn’t help themselves
though by responding to the inevitable questions from the slavering media by
saying ‘football reasons’ without expanding on what these football reasons
are. Lescott, Cahill, Jagielka and Terry
have all had better seasons than Rio… how about that.
Roy’s first game was a 1-0 win in Norway where he unveiled a
4-4-2 formation which is the international football tactical equivalent of
having a mullet and white socks. We’ll be using it along with the Irish. Norway were shit and we won 1-0 with a goal
from Ashley Young who was the one creative spark which is not surprising in a
team which has Stewart Downing and James Milner on the wings. A player with zero assists and zero goals in
his season for Liverpool and a Manchester City reserve whose whole game appears
to involve doing shuttle runs and occasionally he and the ball come into
contact and he gives it back to the other team.
Gareth Barry had put in a dreadful 20 minute cameo in this game before
being injured and being ruled out of the tournament. Roy corrected one of his selection rickets
and brought in Phil Jagielka as a replacement which has the added bonus of
decreasing the likelihood of Phil Jones playing in defence. I’m not bothered by Barry’s withdrawal as I’m
still haunted by him losing a 10 yard race when he had a 9 yard start against
the Germans in the World Cup. Before the
next friendly, Frank Lampard did a thigh muscle in training and was ruled out
as well. This was a blow as Lamps had
had a decent second half to the season with Chelsea and because it brought
Jordan Henderson into the squad despite him having had a woeful season with
Liverpool.
Following this was a home game against Belgium at Wembley in
which we didn’t want any injuries but of course we got one as Gary Cahill was
cynically shoved into Joe Hart by some Belgian bloke and broke his jaw. The only saving grace of this incident was
that it wasn’t Hart who got injured else we’d be down to Robert Green who even
looked dreadful in the warm up at Wembley.
As a footnote, we were completely outplayed and again managed to win 1-0
as Young set up Welbeck to cleverly lob the only goal. Alex Chamberlain replaced Downing on the left
wing in this game and was better (not difficult) but Milner was again a
complete creativity dead zone on the right.
He’s taken the sporting act of giving the ball back to the opposition to
new levels by not waiting for an opponent to be injured.
Cahill’s injury of course brought more media clamour for Rio
to be called up but much to the annoyance of the media, this was ignored again
and Martin Kelly, another Liverpool player was called up. I’ve never seen him play, not even on
highlights so can’t comment on him.
So here we are with Euro 2012 about to begin. No expectations other than that England will
be hard to beat. Personally I don’t think we’ll win it as long as I have a hole
in my arse. If I had to pick a winner
then I’d say the Spanish (again) but for now I’d say the Group winners will be Russia,
Netherlands, Spain and France. England….
Quarter finals at best.
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