and inevitably … england are out

Here we go then.

Firstly, it’s been a couple of days since England were humiliated by Germany in the World Cup, so I’ve had time to get over my knee-jerk KILL THEM ALL reaction. Everything’s a bit calmer, and a bit more focused now. The England flags are down, the panic about how to make sure I get to see the next England match has gone; now I’m just enjoying the World Cup as I should do.

So what went wrong? Why did England – heralded as one of the pre-tournament favourites – fuck things up so spectacularly? The inquest (and recriminations) have already begun.

First of all, let’s make this clear: England were completely and utterly useless throughout the entire tournament. In fact, they were largely crap in the three warm up games before the tournament as well. This is in stark contrast to England’s 18-month qualifying campaign, where they swept aside virtually everyone in their path with style, class and confidence. But that’s gone now, so let’s get back to the tournament itself.

Game 1 (USA) – score: 1-1
Verdict: below average performance against a team of journeymen players who England should have easily outclassed.

Game 2 (Algeria) – score: 0-0
Verdict: an appalling performance against a crap team

Game 3 (Slovenia) – score: 1-0
An average performance against a weak team, but England made to look better by the fact that they were so bad in the previous game. England squeeze through to the last 16 in second place in our group.

Game 4 (Germany) – score: 1-4
Verdict: England woeful against a good side, who duly ripped us to shreds. England out of the World Cup.

I don’t think there’s much to argue with there, is there? And it makes pretty stark reading. England barely scraped through the easiest group you’re ever likely to see, solely because the opposition weren’t good enough to expose our frailties. As soon as we played a decent side, they embarrassed us and made us look like a Sunday league side. Even though England had a clear goal disallowed which would have made it 2-2 in the first half, and even though England did manage to put 10 minutes of decent football together for the first time in the tournament, don’t let this mask the fact that England were thoroughly outclassed by a young, talented but inexperienced German side.

Since the Germany game, blame seems to have been attributed fairly evenly between the players (particularly Rooney) and the manager. For what it’s worth, I’m firmly in the “blame the manager” camp, which is unusual territory for me.

The Players

It’s true that the players were bloody useless. There’s a strong core of supposedly world-class players in the England team, and without exception they were all useless. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Terry: every single one of them was a shadow of their usual selves. Rooney appears to be coming in for most of the flak, but that’s pretty standard – England fans love blaming United players for their team’s failure.

There are three other players who should be part of the world-class club above: Beckham, Ferdinand and Joe Cole. The first two were injured before the tournament. Joe Cole barely got a game – but more of that later.

However, I’ve just mentioned five players in the ‘world-class’ bracket. That leaves six others on the pitch. During this World Cup the ‘other’ players used were Joe Cole (briefly), Heskey, Crouch (very briefly), Defoe, Barry, Lennon, Milner, Carragher, Upson, Johnson, Green and James.

Some of them did OK (in the context of crap performances all round), and some of them were bloody useless.

However, the point is that – without exception – not one England player performed as well as they can and should have. Not one. That’s incredible.

Many people are saying that the players should be ashamed of themselves, and that they are clearly overpaid primadonnas who need to sort themselves out. Many have accused them of not playing with pride or passion. Some suggest that they don’t respect the England shirt as they should.

All of these arguments are persuasive – surely a good player is a good player no matter what?A highly skilled and highly paid professional footballer should be able to play well under any circumstances? These arguments certainly seem to make sense, but – to my mind at least – the fact that the entire squad performed so badly means that the problem (or root of the problem) lies somewhere else.

Players have bad games every now and then. Some players are carrying minor injuries or returning from injury. Players may be tired from the long English season (although that doesn’t seem to be bothering foreign players in the Premiership who are playing this World Cup). All of these can cause individual bad performances; however, I cannot believe that every single player in the England squad was tired, injured or having a bad day. Over the course of four games (or seven, if you include the bad warm-up games performances as well).

And that that’s exactly what it looked like.

No. For every single player to be affected, there’s got to be something else going on, which leads us nicely into reason two.

The Manager

Up until this World Cup Fabio Capello could do no wrong. He’d taken an under-performing England team that failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and turned them around. They cruised through the qualifiers, looking like the best England team we’ve seen for a very long time. And yet, as soon as it came to the run up for the World Cup, it all fell apart. Why?

Firstly, as much as Capello is a superb manager, this is his first time as a national manager. That didn’t matter in the qualifiers, where he gets hold of the players for a couple of days every few months and plays one or two matches with them. But perhaps his inexperienced of national squads showed once he got hold of the players full time, after the season finished and through to the tournament itself. We’ve all heard the stories of how he runs a tight ship with no distractions. Several players (chiefly John Terry) have even told the media that the England camp is a dull, austere place with nothing to do once training has finished. That sounds to me like at least part of the problem – unhappy players away from home for over a month with bugger-all to do doesn’t sound like the best foundation for a winning team.

Capello’s strategy has also come under fire. Throughout the qualifiers he played a strict 4-4-2, with great success, so why shouldn’t he stick to that system during the World Cup? Because it wasn’t working any more, that’s why. I don’t know what changed, but something did, because a previously fluid attacking system turned into a disjointed, uncomfortable system that simply didn’t look right any more. What’s more, everyone seemed to know this, including the players. In what was an unprecedented press conference with John Terry, he virtually criticised Capello – in front of the press – for not changing the system to something the players preferred. We all glossed over it a bit at the time – probably because we feared that the England team were going down the same path as the French – but in hindsight that was an incredible moment in English football history. Have we ever seen a senior player openly question his manager, especially during a tournament? I can’t think of another example. In any case, it seemed as if the whole country was screaming for the system to be changed, and specifically for Gerrard to be brought in from the left flank to play behind Rooney, with Joe Cole coming in on the left wing. And what did Capello do? 4-4-2 with Gerrard on the left and Heskey – that’s right, HESKEY – playing up front with Rooney. Even when things clearly weren’t working (after the Algeria game, for example), he stuck with it, and refused to try something else. So now what can we say about his 4-4-2? It worked well in the qualifiers, not so well in the warm-ups, and it failed badly in the tournament.

And finally, while we’re having a pop at Capello, explain this to me. In the group stages he went with Heskey, and it failed. He finally put Defoe on instead, and it worked (sort of). So against Germany he started with Defoe. However, at 4-1 down, with ten minutes to go, Capello decides to make a change. He takes Defoe off and puts Heskey on. What the screaming fuck is all that about? You’re desperate for three goals in ten minutes to stay in the World Cup, and you put Heskey on? Even Heskey admits that he’s not a goal scorer (probably – if he doesn’t admit it, he should). And all the while, sitting on the bench for the entire tournament you have the striker who has scored more goals for England in the last two years than anyone else. A player who scores when he starts a match, and scores when he comes on as a sub. A player who has scored 21 goals in 38 appearances for England (compared to Heskey’s 7 goals in 57 appearances, or Defoe’s 11 in 40, or even Rooney’s 25 in 59). Peter Crouch is sitting there, and all Capello did was play him for the last five minutes of a group match. When we needed three goals in ten minutes, Capello brought on Heskey and took off Defoe. Absolute madness.

Why It Went Wrong

To my mind, you can’t blame England’s woeful World Cup campaign on the players. Sure, they didn’t cover themselves in glory, and they definitely should have shown a bit more pride in the shirt, despite the problems in the background. However, to suggest that all 23 players under-performed, all at the same time, during a World Cup campaign (the biggest tournament they’ll ever play in), just because they’re spoilt primadonnas who are a bit tired, doesn’t make sense. It has to be something to do with the setup – whether it be the strict regime or the unpopular formation – that caused it.

In reality of course, it’s probably a combination of many things. Bad pre-tournament performances caused by excessive switching around of team members, the manager not naming the team until two hours before kick-off, end of season tiredness, missing their girlfriends and wives, a bad goalkeeping error costing us two points and knocking our confidence at the start – these things all probably added up to a catastrophic failure. However, virtually all of these things are controlled by the manager, not the players. And that’s why, on this occasion, I think we have to lay the blame firmly at Capello’s feet.

But I don’t think that means we should sack him – he is, after all, a great manager. He proved that over a two year period before the World Cup. But I think he does need to accept that managing a national squad at a tournament is different to managing it during the qualifiers, and certainly different to managing a club side. If he can see that, and change his tournament style accordingly, he could still be a great England manager. However, given how stubborn he appears to be, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom. At least we’re not Scottish