Two moments of madness

Engerland never, ever make it easy for themselves. Here a match that was clearly there for the taking, and the easy taking at that, was transformed into a backs to the wall war of attrition which Engerland nearly managed to lose thanks to two moments of suicidal madness.

Concentration, Concentration, Concentration

Arsène Wenger used to go on about concentration all the time. Aside from not seeing things it was his go-to excuse for slip ups and incompetence whenever Arsenal lost (or drew) in Europe. But it was never more clearly illustrated than in Engerland’s total switch off for Montenegro’s first goal on the stroke of halftime. This set the tone for the rest of the game. Before that Engerland were comfortably in control, indeed they were actually playing within themselves and never looked like being threatened by the Montenegrans. Afterwards it seemed as if none of them had ever seen a round ball, much less played with one. And once they found themselves on the back foot they never looked as if there was any chance of them seizing the initiative from their opponents and while the Montenegrans rarely appeared truly threatening, they totally dominated the entire second half. Thankfully Engerland had already built their two goal cushion, because without it they would have been crushed.

You Can Take The Boy Out Of Chav…

But you can’t, apparently, take the Chav out of the boy. Rooney’s petulant kick at defender Dzudovic, which saw him sent off, will set the tone for his entire Euro 2012. So reminiscent of Gascoigne’s madness in the FA Cup final (the injury he caused himself blighted the rest of his career) or more pertinently Beckham’s kick out at Argentinian defender Diego Simeone in France 1998? If Capello has any sense he will be including Rooney in his squads, but will only play him from the bench if at all. That way the team will have to learn how to live without him, while he will still feel part of the side. And in a pleasing development, this is exactly what Capello has said he wants to do.

All About The Attack

We also saw Wales beat the Swiss, something Engerland couldn’t do at Wembley. They have continued their admirable progress up the FIFA rankings, albeit from somewhere close to the bottom. And it struck me, does Engerland actually have an attack as good as the Welsh? You have Bale and Bellamy racing down the wings actually threatening teams, something that Wallcott, Young, Downing, Lennon seem to do only infrequently. And they’re backed by a midfield, led by Ramsey, which actually likes to pass the ball. And I wondered, Is anyone actually afraid of Engerland? Because I wouldn’t be. They are a good Championship qualifying side, one of the teams you wouldn’t want to be in a qualifying group with, but nothing special.

Who Are Ya? (Repeat Until Senseless)

If Engerland were a Prem team, who would they be? Let’s think, supposedly one of the big beasts, yet they haven’t won anything for ages; capable of scoring goals yet always vulnerable with dodgy defending and a very soft centre;  just lost their talismanic forward/midfield dynamo; potentially a great attacking side yet always looking to throw away a lead… Any ideas? Could they possibly be today’s Arsenal (albeit with considerably less technique) in disguise?

Still A Few Good Points Lurking (Even If We Don’t Always Pick Them Up)

1. Engerland have qualified and are in the second pot. And now that we don’t have to jet about trying to win approval from some FIFA despot we can play some proper friendlies and try to build a side that could do well in Euro 2012. Time for Capello to really earn his money, playing players with potential, rather than the same old failures.
2. New broom? Engerland went to South Africa with the oldest squad in the tournament. And with players like Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Rio and Ashley Cole beginning to look tired (or perpetually injured) it’s time for change. Capello has a moment, in between the demands of qualification and the tournament itself to test out the new blood. We want to see what a midfield of Wilshire, Cleverly and McEachran can do. What an attack with Welbeck, Young and Wallcott can accomplish if they’re allowed to float around and go for their opponents. We want to see players who can hold and play with the ball rather than just hoof it. We want to see an attitude to friendlies that says, it’s more important how we play the game than the result, because right now we have an opportunity to try things out without recrimination.
3. Changing expectations. We’re probably not going to win it. One of Engerland’s apparent problems has been the weight of expectation on their heads. Now, surely, that isn’t the case. I don’t think anyone expects Engerland to win Euro 2012. And with Spain, Holland and Germany all apparent certainties for the semis (an unkind draw aside), it would show admirable progress for Engerland to even get to the semis. What we do want to see is a dramatic improvement in both technique, holding and using the ball, and tactics, determining when to press and when to let your opponents have their head.

Description Of A Fool

I’m sure there was a song once by someone like A Tribe Called Quest about what it takes to build a Frankenstein fool out of the bits n pieces of poor quality human flesh you find lying around the place. A major constituent of which was unblinkered support for poor quality national sporting teams. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the poor, deluded fans of the Engerland football team. Fools to a man (and woman), they (we) continue to expect commanding, effective performances when years (decades in many cases) of experience tell us that this is simply not possible. Like hapless Lotto victims drawn back to the scratchcard pit simply because the potential jackpot (a genuinely impressive Engerland performance) is so staggeringly massive, they (we) are pulled back into the remorseless gravitational hole that is an Engerland match by the seeming certainty that one day, some day, it won’t be as terrible as this. That one day, some day, we will once again hit the heights of Engerland v Holland ’96, which was a truly beautiful game albeit one that took place over 15 years ago. And just as the Jolly Jackpot custodians pocket our tenners with glee, passing the dregs on to a cornucopia of poorly chosen ‘good causes’, so the Engerland team crush our spirits and extinguish our hopes by putting in yet another truly tedious display. One day, some day, we will tire of it.

Wales Scale The Lows

Pity the poor Welsh. Hampered by a catchment area that is not only the size of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but mainly populated by Welsh rugby players, they outpassed and out thought Engerland for large portions of the game and still got nothing for their trouble. They did Engerland a massive favour by beating Montenegro (something Engerland couldn’t do themselves) earlier in the week and they doubled up by missing an open goal from six yards to avoid giving themselves a draw. Now that’s either being super charitable, or bloody unlucky. Given they had the two most influential and effective players on the pitch in Ramsey and Bale, Wales have to consider themselves cursed in some way.

Engerland, meanwhile, just seem to be eternally cursed. The same tortuous failings reared their heads again. And while time and injury seem to have reduced the decade-long issue of how to play both Lampard and Gerrard in the same team to an irrelevance, the elephant in the room remains the absolute lack of any kind of creative midfield. We have a vaguely solid defence, Hart is good in goal, Smalling is looking capable, if a bit inexperienced on the right, Cole is looking experienced, if a little slower on the left, while Terry, Cahill, Rio, Jagielka and co provide a decent set of vaguely competent centerback pairings albeit with limited speed. We have pace, if not application, in the intermittent wing play of Wallchart, Young, Johnson and Downing, and occasionally skilful work from Rooney in attack. Yet we have no one and nothing to bind these two together other than aimless, ineffective hoof balls sent flying over the midfield like artillery barrages from the First World War.

Engerland’s failings are rooted in a schooling system that has children playing on full size pitches, where kick n rush is the common tongue and a long ball over the midfield scrum is often effective as your goal-hanging striker can just about outrun the opposition and pile the ball into a goalmouth that easily swallows pint-size keepers. It’s here that the thuggish 11 year old defenders can cut down attackers half their size with meaty impunity, barrage blocking them through the sheer power of their girths. Soon these too slow, too inept leviathans will become the Upsons of their age, taking their poor touch and limited control to all areas of the football league. No wonder we have no midfield. If Messi were English his legs would never have been extended and his spirit and talent would have been crushed by the time he was 12.

Engerland’s midfield was the pride of this exemplary display of long-term scholastic ignorance. Barry, so slow he makes time lapse photography look impossible, Milner, so continually ineffective, and the returning Lampard, who once played for Chelsea for years at a time, now seems to struggle to see his way through a single game. These are men more suited to playing a giant game of Grandmother’s Footsteps, not football, so static and immobile they seem. Not a single decisive forward thinking pass through the middle from any of them for the entire match. Not one, penetrating diagonal to Rooney. Not even an attempt. Barry seems to have thought that because he was wearing the no 4 shirt he should have been in the defence, or if he wasn’t that the ball should be immediately returned there. Milner seemed so preoccupied fouling Bale, he didn’t have time to do anything with the ball. While Lampard saw so little of it he might as well have been on holiday. Still he was more effective than Scott Parker, who replaced him and collapsed Engerland’s shape even further.

All of which meant that rather than pushing forward and pressing the Welsh, which admittedly Engerland did do for moments at the start of each half, the midfield simply stood off the defence, hunkering down on the customary 18 yard line like stick thin linebackers holding hands with the defence, and forced the attack to retreat ever further in search of the ball. As a result much of the play was condensed in the Engerland half, allowing Wales to have ever-more possession and making the old Engerland hoofball even more ineffective.

Rooney must just despair. Stuffed upfront like an unwanted child’s toy, he can’t have received the ball more than a handful of times in the Welsh half and each time he did he was encircled by two or three Welshmen and bereft of support. It must be something of a culture shock to come from a side that’s playing fluid, interchangeable pass and move football to the Engerland camp, where movement is discouraged, possession something to be feared and passing erratic at best.

There is an upside, if rewarding your greatest failings can be said to have an upside. Engerland have played very poorly and still got six points. No one got injured and we are a step nearer to qualification. Right now, the fact that these performances won’t see us get a point in the Group Stages is somewhat immaterial.

Not  A Lot To Write Home About

A win is a win eh? And doubly so when it’s a win in the Euro 2012 qualifiers and pesky side Montenegro manage to lose against the Welsh. Once again Engerland’s destiny is in their own hands. From here on in it’s all downhill (naturally).

That SkyGo Malarky Ain’t Half Bad

For various reasons I was without television, or more practically given that not only was the game only available on Sky but there were no terrestrial highlights, I was without access to Sky Sports. So I had to make do with Sky’s SkyGo app on my iPad. I had expected shit-stream quality video with warbling audio and frequent drop outs. What I got was great quality video and audio. On a 2Mbs line. Pretty fabulous. Didn’t compensate for a terrifyingly stilted match though.

Crap Kit

Engerland sported a new-fangled blue kit, which like Fulham’s goose-shit green away kit or numerous brown kits, should be swiftly consigned to the bin.

Where, Oh Where, Was The Midfield?

What with four defenders and two holding midfielders and, occasionally, dragging Rooney back into midfield, Engerland often had seven men in their own half behind the leading Bulgarian. Which left their three attacking players struggling to weave their way through up to nine outfield players arranged in two neat rows on their 18 yard line. So it was no surprise that the game quickly degenerated into a ghastly kind of head tennis. Capello’s innate defensive nature meant he played not one, but two holding players and both Barry and Parker are way too slow and far too defensively inept for genuine international competition. Their inclination to drop deep meant that there was in effect no midfield at all, another reason for the incessant hoofball being played by the defence. Engerland are going to have to learn to actually pass the ball on the ground through midfield if they want to actually have any genuine threat in international matches.

Oh And It Should Be Pass AND Move

Once again there was little movement from England players who didn’t have the ball. When they lost possession, a leisurely jog back to their own half was required, but without any need to actually track back or mark any of the opposition. When one of Engerland’s players did have the ball, the rest simply stood around like bemused onlookers. No wonder there was no option for the defenders other than a hoof or punt. If you can’t play it to the midfield, because the midfielders are either standing on your toes or on the opponent’s penalty area, and no one else is showing for the ball, what else can you do? If Engerland want to make this more attack-minded lineup actually work, they’re going to have to indulge themselves in some off-ball movement.

Still It’s The Result That Counts

And, yes, it was 3 – 0 to the Engerland. But the performance was dire and if the Bulgarians hadn’t given up before the game started things would have been a whole lot different. This kind of performance will lose you a Championship Group Stage match every day of the week. Still, next up, the Welsh.

 

Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

While it’s undoubtedly a good thing that a bit of intellectual analysis is being applied to football, in particular the increased use of in-game/prozone style statistics to monitor a player’s activities over individual matches and seasons, there’s a danger of developing a simple set of ‘dumbed down’ numbers that are positively counterproductive.

Take, for instance, the much over-used ‘possession’ stat. Scorelines aside, it’s close to becoming the single number that defines a team’s performance, a get out of jail free card should the team lose – ‘well, we had the bulk of possession and were unlucky to lose’ – or a great defence – ‘sure we were under the cosh, they had 75% of possession, but we battled through to a win’. But the truth is that possession is not a simple number.  As has clearly been shown in this Under 21′s Championship. It ain’t how much possession you have, it’s what you do with it. It’s almost as if we should have another stat, Effective Possession.

Take the Young Engerland vs Spain match, Spain had 65% or more possession, dominated the game, yet still only managed to get a draw by virtue of a deliberate handball. Hardly the stuff of dreams. So much so that it spawned Engerland manager Stuart Pearce’s comment that ‘if we had 60% of possession, we would be winning games four or five nil’, a remark that is bound to come back to haunt him, if it hasn’t already. Not least from this game, where it was Engerland who had 64% of possession, but were fundamentally unable to impose themselves on the game.

Possession Is As Possession Does

It all comes down to what you do with possession. The Czechs it seems were happy to give possession to Young Engerland, knowing that Young Engerland were incapable of doing anything significant with it, and for the millionth time, simply passing the ball aimlessly around the back four as they try desperately to figure out what they’re supposed to do with the strange round white thing at their feet doesn’t count as effective possession. Sure Young Engerland scored, but it wasn’t until the 76th minute, and once they did things appeared to fall apart. The Czechs, with their progress to the semis in doubt, immediately changed their tactics, pushed forward and eventually equalised. Then, with Young Engerland forced forward in a desperate attempt to score so that they would qualify, the Czechs applied the hammerblow and scrapped in a winner. You could call it unlucky, but the reality is it was an accurate reflection of a side who simply can’t control games.

Young Engerland Beset By Familiar Failings

Once again, Young Engerland came across as having all the qualities and failings of the senior side. A bunch of undoubtedly talented individuals who somehow become less than the sum of their parts when put into a team. A team (and I include both the players and the management team here) who appear to have no tactical understanding, no ability to shape or change a game and no ability to react intelligently to on pitch events.

You sensed that there was no concept of how to effectively manage the transitions of the game, to move from defence into possession, into attack. No understanding of what the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents were and how to effectively deal with or exploit them. And no thought as to how to make these individuals gel into a genuinely strong team.

Once again, an English team is defeated by the tournament process. We seem to have got to grips with the qualification process, which in itself is no mean feat given that neither France, Germany, Portugal nor Italy managed to get through, but we haven’t yet mastered the experience of tournament football. Pearce looks like a manager who is adept at selecting the most talented 11 individuals for a match (although his choice of Mancienne as a holding midfielder was a classic case of finding a square hole to keep his captain on the pitch), but not the best team. And for qualification, that’s probably all that’s needed, after all any single qualification match is going to be dogged by inevitable injuries and pull-outs, so the team pretty much picks itself. In tournament football, where you have a squad of players, you have to build a team.

Statistically speaking, Loserpool’s new wunderkind, Jordan Henderson, may be every bit the £20 million manboy talent they think he is, but if he can’t link up with Smalling and Jones in defence providing a conduit to the attack, then he’s a lot less useful to this team. Similarly, if the defence can’t find a way to move the ball forward other than bloody minded hoofery, they’re only fulfilling half of their responsibilities to the team. Welbeck and Sturridge may have the most effective movement of any striker in the world, but if the midfield can’t supply them the ball occasionally, there’s something seriously wrong with the system.

Increasingly we’re hearing a lot of talk about ‘footballing brains’, as if they are somehow different from the brains that ordinary mortals like you or I are issued with at birth. But the truth is that both players and managers should be judged less by the brains they have than the choices they make both during and around a game. Pearce’s choices of Mancienne in an unfamiliar midfield holding role and Henderson in central midfield appear to have been poor and his decision to stick with both of them throughout the Ukraine match seems to show a lack of both adaptability and imagination. Lansbury might appear reluctant to leap into a tackle unnecessarily, but he was much more effective than Henderson at moving the ball into dangerous positions.

Lessons For Engerland (Young And Old)

Great teams, tournament winning teams, adapt as the tournament develops, subtly altering structure and formation as they search for the perfect fit. And, inevitably, they are rarely simply the 11 best players or the 11 fully fit players you get during qualification. We think of Jimmy Greaves, undoubtedly Engerland’s most skillful player at the time, who played not a minute of the 1966 World Cup final, but more recently neither Fernando Torres nor Cesc Fabregas started for Spain in last year’s World Cup final and it was Villa, rather than Torres who grew into the striker’s role as the tournament progressed. Indeed Torres, like Greaves before him, found himself being edged out of a team that was somehow more effective when his mercurial talent wasn’t there.

Indeed, Spain typify the kind of adaptation that teams need to display to win tournaments. Their initial loss to Switzerland provoked something of a crisis of confidence, challenging the entire playing ethos of the team. And the Spanish adapted, using fast, mobile substitutes earlier on in the game, when their opposition had become worn down by their attacking possession play and space opened up. And, increasingly, it was Torres who was sacrificed for players like Llorente.

Too often Engerland, Young and Old, are seduced by the cult of the individual, the delusion of the ego. We spent years (entire championship cycles) trying to adapt our formation so that both Lampard and Gerrard could play in the same side, deluding ourselves that two players who fundamentally play the same position, could be accommodated without damaging the team by making at least one of them (frequently both) play out of position. We invent an entirely spurious ‘left wing’ problem because we have to have somewhere to put our extra midfield ego. And still, it’s enough, thanks to seeding and the relatively forgiving nature of the qualification process, to get us to the main event. However, once there, the game moves beyond the egos of individual qualification matches to the team-focused requirements of the tournament. And there we fail. Somewhere around the last 16 mark, as we gaze doe-eyed at the superior teams ahead of us.

This Young Engerland side wasn’t bad. They qualified, beating some relatively serious countries along the way. And, yes, they were in a challenging group. But in three games, they never once looked like seizing the moment, imposing their will on a game or being realistic contenders. And that’s a harsh lesson to be taking away.

It’s going to take a long, long time to sort out the fundamental failings in the system. So we’d better start right now.

If It Continues Like This It Will Be Bad

Stultifyingly negative anti-football that elevates technocratic defensive organisation and tedious teamwork above attacking ambition and individual flair. Timid teams more afraid of losing than they are of grabbing the initiative, attacking and actually, get this, winning matches. Thoroughly ghastly confrontations between teams that we don’t care for playing games they don’t give a shit about. This is a bad thing.

No not simply my impression of this thoroughly tortuous hour and a half of footballing anti-matter, but the reaction to Switzerland’s match with Spain in last year’s Big Boys World Cup. This scathing could apply equally to both Young Engerland and their opponents, which is unsurprising seeing as many of the Ukraine team are already full internationals.

Are Young Engerland The New Switzerland?

Like Spain, the Swiss international team has developed its own distinctive style which it has applied throughout the varying age levels. Admittedly where Spain have embraced the beautiful and successful tiki-taka, pass and move, play the ball, buccaneering style that has made them World, European and Acclaim Champions, the Swiss have made defensive obduracy their metiér. They may not score very many (one goal in two World Cups), but they don’t concede many either (none at all in World Cup 2006, that’s none, zero, nada). On the negative side, and it’s a huge negative, they are by some way one of the two most tedious international sides to watch, the other being the team out front, Ukraine. It’s well known that Switzerland and Ukraine played out the single worst ’round of 16′ matches in the 2006 World Cup. A World Cup Round of 16 match where both teams appeared to be playing for a 0-0 draw and penalties from the start. What message does that send?

The terrifying thought is that Young Engerland are becoming not the new Spain, all lovely interlinking passing, game control and goal threat, but the new Switzerland, a decent defence and impotent, hoofball attack. And that, frankly, this is the best we can hope for. All that talent, so little application.

Sheeeeeet Does, Indeed, Roll Downhill

Apparently Passionate Young Engerland manager Stuart Pearce felt after the Spain match that ‘if Engerland had 60% of the ball, we’d be winning matches 4 or 5-nil’. Well Pearcey, apparently Young Engerland did get 60% possession here and it didn’t quite work out the way you thought it would. Young Engerland were, if anything, more frightened, paralysed and incompetent on the ball than they were against Spain only four days ago.

Once again, you have to wonder just what exactly Pearce and his team do to players who, individually, have proven to display reasonable amounts of technical and on-pitch skills. What is it about Engerland and Young Engerland’s big tournament preparation that so thoroughly separates young men from their talents? What is it that separates managers and tacticians from any significant event that has taken place since the Scottish and Hungarian trainers took football to South America in the 1930s? Sure they toy with radical developments like 4-3-3 formations (if only to pay homage to Sir Alf’s wingless wonders) for the first five minutes, but they immediately default to the utter tedium of the safety first 4-5-1 once they cede their first possession to their opponents.

Young Engerland are so retarded that they think ‘isolated striker’ is a tactical innovation on a par with ‘false no 9s’ as played by Lionel Messi. Which is to say that an isolated, played out of the game no 9 à la Shearer or, better yet, Heskey is in any way comparable to a gamechanging, world-beating, deep-dropping forward like Messi. They seem to believe that they will gain some kind of competitive advantage by actually lopping off the tip of the team spear. Not that the team actually manages to get the ball up to the ‘isolated striker’ that often.

For, defence aside, Young Engerland were simply woeful. Midfielders like £20 million man Jordan Henderson and Jack Rodwell seemed utterly bypassed by the game, incapable of seizing the ball and dominating the midfield. Indeed neither of them seemed to even want the ball, let alone be able to do anything with it should they be unfortunate enough to actually gain possession. As for defender turned midfielder (and captain) Mancienne, he seemed like he was several divisions beyond his depth. The best thing I can say about him is to applaud his decision to move to Hamburg and hope life in the German league improves his play.

Where Is The Problem?

One thing we learned from the last World Cup is that tournament football is a completely different animal to qualification. Both Young Engerland and Engerland seem to have the art of qualification sorted, which in itself is no mean feat given that the 2009 Under-21 champions, Germany, didn’t even qualify for this Championship. What we haven’t got to grips with in any coherent way is the challenges of tournament football. This could simply be because at tournament level you’re playing better sides (Engerland usually being the top seed in any qualifying group) and it’s pretty well proven that both Young Engerland and Engerland struggle with better sides in friendlies. Or it could be something to do with the 4 – 5 high pressure games played once every three or four days.

We need to find some way to allow Young England players to shed the fear they obviously feel so they can actually take responsibility and actually play the ball. Sure they’ll make mistakes, but then I believe Messi made mistakes and lost the ball during the Champions League final and that, get this, Xavi doesn’t have a 100% pass completion rate. But they understand how to work together to correct their mistakes and take the game to the opposition. Too often Engerland players seem to be so afraid of the ball that they’d rather not have it, so risk averse they’d rather not make any kind of move.

Oh and Ukraine? Every bit as disappointing as their full side.