In The Eyes Of Their Fathers

And so another generation begins its great descent into oblivion. How so much potential talent can be transformed into something as godawful as this is something of a mystery, if not a complete surprise. If the full Engerland team’s recent performance against Switzerland was turgid, unimaginative garbage, then this was the youthful wellspring of rot, the place where the decaying filth that is Engerland’s tactical play originates. Young Engerland, quite simply, are the stinking antithesis of football. And it’s a foul stench they exude.

It’s a mystery what happens in those few days the Engerland team members are corralled together before big games. And it’s impressive. Players enter with talent and ambition and only days later are transformed into Automatons of Hoof, fundamentally incapable of controlling, passing or using the ball in any coherent manner. What is it that the backroom staff do to so successfully amputate all vestiges of skill or technique? No one seems to know. What is clear is that they are stunningly effective. The likes of Sturridge, Welbeck, Cleverley, Henderson and Smalling, all players who have at least vaguely impressed in the Prem over the last year, were reduced to lumbering, incompetent hulks seemingly incapable of any action beyond dire hoof n hope ballplay.

Spain, in contrast, seem to have it all sorted. After decades of being the ‘Golden Generation That Couldn’t’ they now appear incapable of playing anything other than gobsmacking possession play. Like Barcelona in the Champions League final, they made their opposition look tired, ineffective and thoroughly ordinary. After a brief, 10 minute sounding out period at the start of the game, where Engerland concentrated on getting their barrage range right, Spain exerted an iron grip on proceedings, controlling the midfield and thus the game. In the rare moments when Engerland’s defence had the ball, they were mercilessly harried and prevented from attempting any kind of serious possession. The only reason Spain didn’t have things  locked down in their own third was the ball was so seldom there. Recent Arsenal performances aside, rarely can a team have had such control and yet been so incapable of taking advantage.

Dirty Cheating Bastards

After all that possession and beautiful interplay, it was a shame to say the least that Spain’s goal should be scored with a handball. And a blatant one at that. What is it about talented sides (and individuals) that makes them believe that this is in any way justified? How can Herrera Ander look at himself when it’s patently obvious that he is a total cheat? And if the likes of Rooney can get banned for swearing and Kolo Touré can be banned for taking supplements (both good bans in my book), how is it that blatent cheats like Herrera Ander can survive in this game? The Spanish should be so ashamed of players like him they should a) refuse to accept the points from the game and, b) never play Herrera Ander again. In the same way that Busquet’s pathetic diving and playacting diminishes his own and Barcelona’s achievements, so this demeans everything Spain have done to promote total football.

Say it again. Dirty Cheating Bastards.

All That Cheating Won’t Save Engerland

Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that Spain really didn’t need to cheat. They really, really don’t. But once they had, you sensed that they felt that they had done enough. They were comfortably in control of the game, with tons of possession and had reduced Engerland to such a degree that they were essentially insignificant. And surely that was it, game over. Like the full Spanish side, they didn’t manage to make their dominance stick, but you felt they didn’t really see the point of exerting themselves to get more goals. Sure they had attempts, but they didn’t manage to break the Engerland defence apart the way Barcelona did Man U’s. And, in not grabbing the game, they let Engerland back in.

And maybe, just maybe, that was justice done. Engerland managed to get a goal from one of their few (very, very few) coherent moves and Spain get punished (a bit) for being dirty cheating bastards.

But make no mistake, a point for Engerland should in no way disguise the multitude of failures that they displayed in this match. Their mirroring of the full Engerland side’s many, many deficiencies should be a stinging reminder of the depths of the fault lines facing the English game. Our top young players cannot control the ball, can’t pass, can’t create and seem scared and paralysed in the face of genuinely decent opposition. Until these issues are addressed, none of the Engerland sides will be doing anything remarkable anytime soon.

Because, good though they are, Spain aren’t apparently the best young side in Europe. Apparently they aren’t even the best young side in this group. Meanwhile, Young Engerland, despite being no 1 in the UEFA rankings, are comfortably the worst side in this group based on this showing.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

There Were Positives

Impressively for a match where Engerland were out-thought, outplayed, out-passed, outclassed and generally outed as a pile of out of date clodhoofers, there were actually positive things we can take from the game. It was, for instance, good that Engerland played a largely young and experimental side in a friendly that fundamentally wasn’t about the result but about the way we got there. It was exactly the right place to try out the likes of Carroll, Henderson, Young and Gibbs to see if they could step up from the Under 21 squad; it was exactly the right place to see whether certain semi-established players like Barry, Milner, Adam Johnson, Lescott, Jagielka, Walcott, and Foster were capable of raising their game and dominating their position; and it was exactly the right place to test whether the big players, Ferdinand and Gerrard still had it in them to be genuinely world class. It was the right place to test out Crapello’s tactics and gameplan against a side that, while also rebuilding, brought a level of skill and ability that Engerland can only aspire to.

Shame Shit Different Day

Sadly, Engerland flunked pretty much all the tests. As a whole, the team performed with a tactical naivety and incompetence that will see them swiftly eliminated from any serious championship, assuming always that the flaws are not so great that we actually make it that far. It was the same sorry story we saw recently against Montenegro and so many other matches before then.

“An inability to accurately pass the ball to a colleague, an inability to effectively control balls lumped up from the back, an inability to work the ball through midfield, failure of movement off the ball, failure of ambition. In fact a general level of failure that was utterly depressing.“

There. I’ve said it before and so it was again. To all that can be added a total lack of pressure off the ball when the opposition has possession. France were given this game by an Engerland side seemingly content to hoof-n-hope it to them every time it had possession, and happy to let the French midfield advance to the edge of the area before beginning to put them under any kind of pressure. It was almost as if they’d been told there was a 3 metre exclusion zone around the French players. You don’t win games by only beginning to impose yourself in your own penalty area.

Tactically, We Don’t Have A Clue

Tactics are the manager’s responsibility. He sets the shape of the team and dictates how it plays. Crapello seems to set his sides up as 4-3-3 or possibly 4-4-1-1, but it’s abundantly clear that this isn’t how Engerland play. When we have the ball we play a mysterious 4-0-1 formation whereby the entire midfield goes missing and balls are artlessly hoofed to the ‘big man’ at the front who is magically supposed to do something with it (and inevitably fails), while when we’re defending we crumple to a 9-0-1 formation lining up like compliant little mice on the edge of our area ceding possession and initiative to the opposing team.

Now, unless he is clinically insane, stupid or diabolical enough to actually want Engerland to lose, there’s no way Crapello actually sets up the team to play this way. He’s intelligent enough to realise that you can’t play playground hoofstyle and expect to win anything more elevated than the Johnson’s Paint Trophy (and that’s probably an insult to the Johnson’s Paint Trophy). You win international matches by retaining possession and passing the ball to feet. Sure the occasional long pass works, but the percentages are against you. That’s why when they do work they look impressive. But, fundamentally, they’re best played against slower sides who maintain a high defensive line. Not against the French.

Somewhere between Crapello’s mouth and the players’ brains something goes horribly, horribly wrong. At some point in the first five minutes of the match everything they’ve discussed gets lost. You can almost see it happening. During the first two or possibly five minutes of an international Engerland play genuinely international class football. We pass the ball to feet when we have possession (admittedly not that well and usually just around the back four) and we press the opposition when we don’t to try and recover the ball. Then, suddenly, it’s gone. The first judders of fear appear, confidence evaporates and we start hoofing it all over the shop. From then on we are merely reacting to events rather than instigating them.

On the showing of the first half Engerland were lucky to emerge with naught. We created nothing, barely got the ball beyond the halfway line and, if we did, it quickly cannoned back to the French. They displayed neat, intelligent interplay, primarily orchestrated by Nasri and Malouda, who don’t seem to have become incompetent simply because they play in the Premiership. The goal, a sweet piece of defence splitting interplay between Malouda and Benzema (who can’t buy an appearance never mind a goal against Spanish defences), simply illustrated the gulf in class between the sides.

The second half was marginally better, if only because the French sat back and relaxed, had some lunch, admired the beauty that is Wemberley Stadium, did some shopping and only vaguely bothered to attend to the pestilence that was the Engerland team. Sure they were still bothered enough to ‘get a spare’ when Sagna, who also doesn’t seem to have become useless by playing in England, trotted down the right and crossed the ball into the box. It helped that there were two attacking midfielders there to turn the ball in (more than Engerland accomplished in total on the night) and that Lescott was painfully out of position.

Did Anyone Emerge With Credit?

Well, the new boys will have learnt a lot.

Carroll will have learnt that, like Crouch, his very height and size count against him at this level, playing in to the worst tendencies of the English mindset. Because he’s tall let’s just lob balls aimlessly at him because he’s bound to be able to keep possession in that physical English way that never works internationally. Let’s not give him beautiful passes to run on to, or support him in any way. Hell let’s try not even having anyone else in the same half as him when we fling balls at him as hard as we possibly can, then blame him when he can’t create any chances. He will have learnt that the England no 9 is a lonely space where you don’t even have the luxury of harrying about trying to win possession. You are the point of a spear whose staff has gone missing.

Gibbs will have learnt that he’s not quite in Ashley Cole’s class just yet. However, he was left with no defensive cover from either Milner or Lescott when Sagna overlapped him and ran in to cross for the second. To be honest he had no defensive support all evening. As he showed on his previous Engerland outing he’s an accomplished left back and great cover for Cole, but he’s not genuinely international class.

Henderson, however, will be ruing his call up. He had a miserable evening in total contrast to his performance against Chelsea only 4 days previously. As a defensive midfielder he was playing in the celebrated Makelélé position, or in the English vocabulary the Hargreaves role, and he struggled. The French, being sneaky, simply played sightly ahead of him or between him and the back four. Meanwhile Engerland proceeded to sabotage his evening by not passing to him and on the rare occasions when he did have the ball by not giving him any passing options (about the only thing they did effectively all evening). He will go back to the Under 21s where he’s genuinely appreciated for their European Championships next year but could return to Engerland for 2012. Given he’s probably going to go to Man United sometime soon he’s definitely one for the future.

Ashley Young, who’s been on the periphery of the squad won’t have done his chances any harm by coming on in the second half. In contrast to Walcott, who still seems impotent at this level as a wide man and was starved of service, Young harried more and did more with the ball when he had possession. With some help from midfield and support up front he might actually have caused the French a problem.

The middleweights pretty much all flunked out. None of Walcott, Milner, Jagielka, Lescott or Barry did anything to enhance their reputations. Barry in particular is looking like a total waste of space. It’s unclear what role he performs and he doesn’t seem to be making any kind of contribution to the side. Walcott and Milner were both starved of service from defence and support in midfield. And when they did get forward to support Carroll there seemed to be no connection or understanding between them, Walcott would be looking for the Arsenal pass, while Milner would be trying to Man City it. Lescott provided no support to his flanks and was ineffective. Jagielka was much better when played as a central defender (his normal position) rather than as a right back.

Stevie G had what for him is becoming a normal Engerland performance. He was rubbish. He didn’t stabilise midfield, didn’t support going forward and was most notable for his continued tendency to attempt the 40 yard ‘hail mary’ pass at every opportunity, gifting possession back to the French on pretty much each occasion. No style, quality or leadership.

Franz Ferdinand was possibly the only player to have come out of this without a damaged reputation. He was merely adequate, doing what he was supposed to with the minimum of skill. However, he was also responsible for the hoof-n-hope tendency, far too often playing long balls out of defence rather than trying to play down the middle.

Adam Johnson showed a disturbing tendency to believe his own hype by trying to win the game singlehanded when a pass to a teammate might have been preferable. Richards added more attack when he was played, correctly, at right back. His work with Johnson on the right showing what Man City might achieve there if only they were both being played regularly.

And Crouch showed what everyone has suspected for a while, he’s got a great touch for a big guy. Which only goes to reiterate pretty much everything that’s wrong about the Engerland mentality. In that strange world they call home and we call ‘Abroad’, they’d simply say he’s got a great touch.

It Was A Great Game For

Jack Wilshere. Missing through injury he might almost have played himself into the heart of the Engerland midfield.

And Let’s Not Forget

Spain, the World Champions, played a friendly as well. They lost 4-0 to Portugal.

OK So Switzerland Aren’t Going To Be The Bogey Team

They might have been the only team aside from the USA (and now Argentina) to have beaten the Spaniards in something like a hundred years, and they might have one of the most impressive international defensive records known to man (accompanied only by an inexplicable inability to actually score at the other end), but the Swiss team that turned out here was a pale shade of their World Cup counterparts. In fact they were so abject that we can only conclude that Montenegro is going to be the bogey team in this group.

The team that once seemed incapable of conceding a goal now seemed unable to actually defend. Sure Engerland were actually good, replicating all the positives of last week’s match with group no hopers Bulgaria, but they were admirably aided by a team that looked beaten even before the kick off. As with the World Cup qualifying campaign, Engerland looked superior in comparison to tawdry opposition, the new shape (Hart, Jags, Gerrard, Rhino, Miliner plus three attacking midfielders/forwards) looks imposing enough for qualification and may, with time, gel to become a dangerous tournament team. Sure they were more tested against a team that has, itself, actually qualified for a tournament, they conceded a goal and found it harder to make genuine chances, but they never looked like they would be useless enough to throw it all away even if Darren Bent eventually got both a run out and a goal.

Are Engerland Actually Developing Strength In Depth?

I say this not because we have suddenly unearthed a new minesworth of brand new English football talent (although the Under 21 side did scrape through to the play offs for the Euro 2011 Under 21 Championships and does contain quite a few interesting players), but because it’s looking like we may have a bit more competition for places. However, it’s a toss up between the strength and poise of, say,  Jagielka and Lescott being an indication of the depth of quality in the squad and it being simply the death knell for Titface and Rio. Personally I favour the latter as that can’t come quickly enough. With Rio basically as fit as Ledley King (and we all know how well that turned out) and trotting on to 32 in November and with Titface slowing down like he’s stuck in one of those ‘running away but marooned in custard’ dreams, I’m hoping Not-Quite-As-Crapello-As-We-Thought will have the strength to tell them that they’re not going to automatically walk straight back into the side. Of much more interest is the growing strength of our wide players, Wallchart, Adam Johnson, Lennon, Miliner and potential new boys like Mark Albrighton. Suddenly friendlies have a purpose again, to allow Crapello to test out new partnerships in a meaningful way rather than just go through the motions. If only we could actually develop some real forwards to challenge Defoe that would be progress.

Boasting Nearly Half The Team Doesn’t Give You The Credit

Much was made of the point at which almost half the Engerland team comprised Man City players (Hart, Lescott, Barry, Miliner, Adam Johnson, with Shaun the Sheep on the bench). How proud Man City must be to have brought along such players. Actually bought along would be more appropriate. Hart and Shaun aside, these players have been purchased not developed by Man City. The credit should go to Everton, Aston Villa, Leeds and Middlesborough. Now if all these players are demonstrably better in 12 months time, then Man City will have something to crow about.

Rob Green Save Of The Day

Poor Spooner Bob. He really isn’t going to live down that World Cup fuck up. However, he might spare a few moments of his time to post this video of Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina playing his first game for Spain for ages against a now Maradonnaless Argentina. It’s better than anything howled up by Green, Carson or even Robinson. No wonder the boy has been kept out of the proper Spain side by Castillas. If Reina was English he’d never play for his club, let alone the national team again. It’s also worth noting the truly cowardly defending that leads up to the hospital pass back to Reina. Sometimes a good hoof is the best policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoYTHli9bTQ

Will The Real Spain Please Stand Up

6 games in. One loss, three harshly ground out 1 – 0 results, not a lot of genuinely inspiring football played. The Spanish were the team that turned beautiful flowing football into a grim tactical war of attrition, barely raising themselves above the mundane in their previous matches. Following their loss to Switzerland, where their celebrated Tikki Takki pass the ball through the eye of a needle style had conspicuously failed to deliver results, they had seemed tentative at times, apparently going through a kind of crisis of confidence over the best route to win the World Cup. Meanwhile, the Dutch, whose football is inextricably linked to the Total Football style of Cryff et al, seem to have comfortably dispensed with their cultural heritage in favour of a more robust What The Hell It Works philosophy. Given this, which bunch of ‘cultured heavies’ would actually turn up and deliver on what should be the world’s greatest stage was anybody’s guess.

Astonishingly on the balance of the first 5 minutes or so, it seemed as though Spain had been restored to the immaculate side that won Euro 2008. They were awesome, showing the element of ambition and attacking flair that had been missing throughout their previous matches. Sergio Ramos, who is a bit of a diva, was outstanding, rampaging down the right and threatening to score after only 5 minutes. It seemed as though the intellectual torpor which had dulled most of the rest of the competition had been erased. Spain, it seemed, had no doubts and the Dutch would take a real pasting. It might not have been tikki takki, but it was fast, direct, intricate and exciting.

Now the Dutch have two World Cup faces. They have the 1974 Cryff team, the best Dutch team never to have won the World Cup, and they have the 2006 vintage as epitomised by the outstandingly ugly match against Cheating Diva’s Portugal side, where the tempo was set in the first few minutes when Boularouz gave the Diva a full on straight leg into the shin with a neat stud rake to finish as a ‘welcome to the World Cup’ gesture. For a moment it looked like there was going to be a debate about which style was going to take precedence. But in truth, there was never going to be any doubt.

If a team with genuine hopes of winning the World Cup has ever disappointed more, I can’t remember it. We don’t count the useless flotsam like Engerland, France or Italy, who never had a prayer of winning, or those with little or no genuine style like, well, Italy again who graced finals with little style but less expectation. But the Dutch. From the Dutch we expected so much more. Not that this team had really ever given us any indication that there was more, their contrast of Sneijder’s style and van Bommel’s thuggery not so much a blend as an assassination. They never really showed anything other than a blunt low grade desire to win ugly, or failing that to win uglier.

And so it went. The Spanish, as is their wont, had lots of the ball, the Dutch, as was their gameplan, were more than happy to bump, barge, beat and bludgeon them off the ball anywhere on the pitch as long as it wasn’t in their own penalty area. A typical move being, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass (over the halfway line at last), pass, clatter, foul. Cue free kick over the bar. As has become usual the robust defence allowed Spain little opportunity to attack and the lack of speed in their attack, bar the first few minutes, meant that there were almost no opportunities for real chances. Villa, the previous hero of Spain, was utterly insignificant throughout. Meanwhile, the Dutch were racking up the cards at a rate previously only seen in their ‘special’ Portuguese match (although it has to be said in their defence that neither Portugal, nor in this case Spain, were exactly angels themselves). Nigel De Jong’s chest high, studs up front kick into Alonso being something of a standout moment.

Now it wasn’t boring in the way that the classic ‘boring’ final of 1994 was, in this case there was the excitement of the first 5 minutes to recall, but it was a game where the creativity and elegance were thoroughly snuffed out. As the 90 minutes staggered to a conclusion, the only consolation was that there couldn’t be more than 30 more minutes of this until it was all over.

And when we woke up the Spanish had won.

64 Down 0 To Go, 1 World Champion

Somebody Somewhere Is Playing The Bee-Gees

“Tragedy, when the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on, tragedy“, played out of the window by some local fool, the lyrics float through the breeze here in the summertime. The saddest thing is that they’re probably not even watching the football. They’re blissfully unaware that they’ve put on the soundtrack to Germany’s summer football dream. Germany, the team who, more than any other here, have embodied the notion of decisive attacking football, who’ve done more than any other team to counter the pernicious influence of the Mourinho Discipline, who’ve provided the best (often sole) entertainment of the tournament and who, after this, are not going to the final. It’s not just a tragedy, it’s a fucking disgrace.

But Germany were well and truly outdone, cut apart and pig-stuck by a Spanish team that has never shown the slightest trace of ambition or fluency. Instead, Spain have developed their own form of football torture, death by a thousand passes. I’ve been greatly disappointed by the Spanish, who, aside from playing some really tedious matches have shown little or no attempt to entertain in any way. They represent, in truth, the counterpoint to the Mourinho Discipline, not its nemesis. For all their pretty passing, tikki takka ‘creativity’, they make far more passes backwards into their own stable area than they do into genuinely dangerous spaces within their opponents’ halfs. They are thoroughly conservative in the worst possible sense, never playing a decisive game changing pass unless it is 100% certain. Instead they’d rather play it around the back , luring the opposition out of position and then punishing them on the break.

It’s a thoroughly cynical, dirty game that provides no evidence of joy or excitement and it’s largely failed at this tournament, which is a surprising thing given that Spain are in the final. It’s about stifling the game, boring the opposition into submission, like some dastardly invention of the inquisition. Confess your sins, they seem to be saying, or we will continue to pass the bastard ball around the back. It’s not about game changing, it’s about game killing, which is why it really only works when Spain are one up. It is no coincidence that Spain have won all the games that matter 1 – 0. And it’s no coincidence that their goal here came from a set piece rather than any intricate bit of tippy tappy bullshit. In many ways they are the George Graham Arsenal of international football, only they can pass it about a bit.

In truth, they did what they did spectacularly well and Germany, the Germany who’ve appeared to always have some kind of tactical advantage, fell into their trap. Like both Engerland and Argentina, Spain played with a high backline, which should have let the Germans have the run of the game. However, Spain’s defence is much tighter than either of Germany’s victims – they actually appear able to defend – and Germany had no luck breaking through it. No, Germany was far too busy playing a game they’re not used to, lining up in two banks of four in a formation uncannily similar to the Mourinho Discipline. And you know what, they’re nowhere near as accomplished at it as the Swiss. Boateng especially looked thoroughly outclassed and out of his comfort zone, and provided the space on the Spanish right for pretty much all of their attacking in the first half. Another big loss for Germany was Mueller, who was suspended for one of those really irritating, given by a Mexican referee yellow cards. He’s one of those players who isn’t really flamboyant, but whose work at the midfield point of the attack is only truly appreciated when he’s gone. And he is critical to Germany’s game.

So, bye-bye the undoubted best team in the tournament. Not bye-bye to one of the least. Fuck me this World Cup is a bastard.

62 Down 2 To Go, 2 Teams Remaining