England - Our Urbane Bedwetters

England are back this coming weekend, returning from their summer sabbatical and their dire performance against the Czech Republic, and ready to attempt to squeeze six points out of Andorra and Croatia. During Euro 2008 everyone looked up to teams like Spain and Holland and down their noses at England, snootily declaring that Fab's Army have nothing to compare to the classy European teams.

A few months ago, Andrei Arshavin was bobbing around peoples' minds like a catchy summer pop tune. His surprising brilliance was a jolt as shocking as an impromptu back, crack and sack waxing session. The Russian was initially linked with the elite of Europe, but as the summer went on his star faded, and he ended the close season being heavily linked to Spurs. In the end even Tottenham didn't bite, testament to how a star can wane quickly, and how high hype can drive a player's value. There is an ersatz glamour associated with the unknown, even now, we get more excited by a mysterious signing from abroad than by a domestic purchase; ultimately most English players are still seen by most as cack-handed clodhoppers.

It is hard to discount England with such a sweeping and cavalier disregard for the facts. Greece won Euro 2008, and Spain won this year - a team that had been twiddling their thumbs in football purgatory for even longer than we have. Why then was it unfathomable that England would succeed?

Looking at the England players - at once dubbed the golden generation and a disgrace to our footballing methods - we see that in terms of personnel, they aren’t as bad as they are made out to be. Rooney, Ferdinand, Lampard and Terry are all vital cogs in the strongest club sides in the world.  The truth of the matter is that England are urbane bedwetters, a team brimming with talent but simultaneously bereft of it.

David James is at once Calamity James and the best shot stopper we have. John Terry is the heroic penalty misser, Rio is the daydreamer with razor sharp defensive skills, and Wayne is the hothead with an ice cold footballing cerebrum - often bellowing at the ref and then taking out his aggression on the ball spanking the hapless orb goal wards with naked rage.

As for the managers, they have to withstand being the focal point for the nation’s volcanic ire. Steve McClaren’s face painted a thousand words, all of them maudlin, as he trudged off with only his brolley as defence against soccer's slings and arrows. That, along with the snatched squeal of “Do I not like that” repeated by Turnip Taylor to a crescendo, and the calm panic of Sven's last games must be a fate that Capello is aware might befall him. Like the players, the gaffer can be lauded as a messiah one day and tarred and feathered the next...

In the Olympics, the US Basketball team was dubbed the "Redeem Team" thanks to their gold medal effort after the previous bravado laden "Dream Team" blustered into the Olympics and didn't live up to expectations. England are coming into qualifying, kicked into the ground and stripped of morale, is there any chance they can redeem themselves?

England may have been bad in the last qualifying campaign, but we have been atrocious before and we were barrel scrapingly cack for an entire decade in the 70's. When it comes to football, we are all convinced we can do a job as manager. Taking a goal kick at Goodison Park in the 60’s Gordon Banks was overheard harrumphing “Gerrup and gerra goal!” - and that simple tactic would be one used by most armchair fans. In Italy, they pride themselves for being tactically obsessed, a country full of fans who chain-smoke their football, but perhaps that is why they value Coverciano - their space age Lilleshall - because they realise just how deep football is. Over here, we do the minutiae of tactics is a similar way that Alistair Darling undertakes the finer points of eyebrow maintenance.

Players like Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, and Steven Gerrard, who play like fuel-injected lions for their clubs, are merely castrated Chihuahuas for the national side. 

The problem is not that they aren’t good enough; the problem is that they wilt in an England shirt. It is hard to blame the fast-growing foreign weeds for coming in and muscling out our gentle English flowers, when this patently isn't the case. Admittedly, there is a large foreign contingent in the Premier League, but a team with Gerrard, Lampard, John Terry, Rooney, Joe and Ashley Cole, and Rio Ferdinand in it is surely capable of mixing it in the European Championship, as all have made it to the summit of domestic football, sucking in the refined air of the Champions League final.

If foreigners are such a harmful influence, how do people explain the fact that England were at their wretched nadir in the '70s, when there weren't any foreigners playing? The argument unravels still further when you look at the Italian League. Serie A has a huge number of foreign players and most top Italian players stay in Serie A – you’d think that they’d be crowded out by the pernicious foreign element but that is far from true; Italy are current world champions.

So this weekend, sit back and relax as our urbane bedwetters again confound and confuse...

Comments

[will]

green, neville, bridge, king, terry, carrick, jenas, lampard, young,ashton, bentley/rooney.

those players arent arrogant enough (yet) to not care about geting england caps and the 4 3 3 formation would give us the movement and dynamism we would need to make up for our technical deficencies. a holding midfield playwer like carrick would give protection to the back four as well as someone comfortable on the ball to spray round the passes and stop the panic setting in when where under pressure. to breaking attacking midfielders like jenas and lampard would give us the angles to make finding our players easier, and the breaking forward would give their defence something to worry about other than our usual static midfield. young and bentley/rooney would give us technical ability skill pace and creativity to unlock defences and ashton is a target man with some ability and a finisher for when the england players go back to be their usual kick and run selves. add that to the solid defence and we would have a chance to do something

[will]

youve got gerrard whinging about playing out of position when any england fan would give anything to wear the three lions on his shirt.

i would say at the moment that with the passion displayed by the current england side that they would get mauled to death by a weedy chihuahua.

if i was cappelo i would drop gerrard forever, and tell every player in the squad that if they havent got the passion to wear the england shirt then quit now cos if you play and dont care then you will never ever get picked for england again

[Lloyd]

England is neither Lion nor Chihuahuas both of these have heart. Problem we face is two fold, pressure by the media and public to select their favourite club players and a lack of true skill in midfield. Scholes left and we have nothing. One is not allowed to say Terry does not deserve his place in the team, Gerrard is rubbish for England, Beckham is past it, Rooney if not scoring we have to pretend all is OK and they are our hero’s who will get us to the World Cup. We really should be playing- Ben Foster, Wes Brown, Rio, Wheater, Ashley Cole, Walcott, Carrick/Rooney, Joe Cole, Wright-Phillips, Heskey, Agbonlahor. Bench, James, Richards, Bullard, Barry, Rooney, Hargreaves.

[Louise COYS]

If only England were as athletic, courageous, strong, fast, cunning and bold as Dougal my chihuahua mix.

[John]

"...after nearly two decades of being by far the richest league in the world, english clubs have only one the champions league twice."

Three times in the last nine years.

[Alex Granata]

Maybe the English players are not lions nor chihuahua. I see them as solid upper-middle players that need some time to form a coherent and strong team.

[reuben anderson]

They should reproduce their club form for England? ... what, give the ball away every 30secs? Play without any form of structure, control or tactics? Lose concentration now and then? No, the quality premier league is massively overrated. Why? because after nearly two decades of being by far the richest league in the world, english clubs have only one the champions league twice.

The only difference between england and the clubs is that their club team plays and trains together for 9months or more every year. The england team get, I would guess, about 1month, not accounting for the constant flow of injuries.

[Pepe Jaramillo]

My pet chihuahua has far more guile than any England player in the current set up.

[vic]

I'm surprised you've bothered with this as since Carragher's revelations the airwaves have been assailed by scousers saying how they don't support England as they are not English and don't want their players injured anyway come on Croatia! They're happy to support Spain and Argentina tho (logic or intelligence not being their strong point).

[jim]

Lets be honest England may have a wealth of talent but when it comes to CF's we have none. Owen is long past it and was never the best at holding the ball up, heading and many other CF skills anyway, and theres no one else ready yet. Coupled with having no top quality CF's our managers then never decided to go with some pace on the wings, SWP, Lennon and now Young and Walcott all should have been placed on our wings long ago. In essence we've been putting out a team like Chelseas without Drogba (or even Anelka to fill in) for the past 4 years or so, and as we've seen with Chelsea a team like that without a target man has problems, Anelka barely manages the job for them how on earth could we hope to play in a similar fashion with Owen or Defoe up front.

[Chris Thorpe]

Exactly - they are talented, it is just that too many midfielders are too similiar. It is essential to have some fast wingers in there. I tell you, that is the ONLY difference. Put Walcott or Young on the right, cole on the left and we will be flowing in the right direction

[Pete]

Great piece, right on the money.....