The South Africa 2010 Preliminary Draw has paired England with their recent conquerers Croatia in the qualifying round. Responding to the draw, The Sun quoted:
Michael Owen has kick-started preparations for 2010 World Cup qualification in earnest by insisting none of the Croatian team would get into the England side.
Hold on a second. Has little Mickey unearthed the problem at the core of the England national side? That players deserving and capable of taking their team to the European Championships, wouldn’t even get into the team? A team over-flowing with overpaid, over-hyped, over-rated prima-donnas who for the most part are picked on reputation alone. Then it is no wonder that Owen and Co. will be enjoying a spot of Floridian sunshine next summer when Slavan Bilic takes his excellent Croatia side to the European Championship finals. You are judged on results in this game Michael – the results (and ability on display at Wembley last week) suggest that Croatia are far better than you.
The England selection process seems to revolve around picking the twenty or so best players in the country (because Englishmen don’t play abroad!) and not in picking a set of players who can perform together as a team. The selection of Lampard and Gerrard is a prime and universally understood example. We know they can’t play together, they know it, and surely the England management know it, but rather than making a sensible decision and dropping one of them, the manager instead waited for injury to bail him out of making the sort of call he was employed to make.
The Croatian team were the worthy winners at Wembley – they had a cohesion and spirit sadly lacking from any recent England team (You probably have to go as far back as 2001 for such an English display). We got what we deserved from a string of lacklustre performances which belied the quality we are told by the media that England’s ‘Golden Generation’ possesses.
And lets just go back to that point about Englishmen playing abroad. The only recent example making it into the side was Owen Hargreaves, but he had now joined Manchester United, meaning that every member of the most recent squad plays in the Premier League (except the semi-retired David ‘Hollywood’ Beckham). Madness.
Football is a worldwide trade, and whilst it offers an attractive return for players in England, from a national perspective we miss out on learning about the game from the worlds masters. The Italians and the Spanish have opposing philosophies to the English one, and our under-representation in those leagues gives us an under-educated and ill-prepared squad when we (used to) arrive at major competitions. Those nations, on the other hand know all about the English game. Stephen Gerrard trains daily with Spaniards and Dutchmen. John Terry lines up for Chelsea games with players from all over the footballing world. This one-sided exchange of a footballing blueprint is undermining the English game, and is also limiting the opportunities for young players to develop to the required standard for top flight domestic, and international football.
It is time for the FA to appoint a MANAGER. Not a coach who is probably under pressure to pick the most commercially viable eleven at his disposal. We need a man who is able to read names on a team-sheet, and not salaries. A man who can cut through the smog of egos within English football and dare to pick players based on merit. What does Rob Green need to do to get an England game? How well do the boys in the England U21 side have to play in order to progress to the senior team? It is a sad time when the English national team are ranked just two laces above Scotland in FIFA’s (admittedly flawed) world rankings, and when fans across the nation a will look at the world cup group containing Ukraine and Croatia in fear.
Mclaren should not be the last person clearing out his Soho Square office right now, but is there any chance of the salary men of our blessed football association leaving the FA, for it to modernise and compete? The answer is alas, no.
This post was originally published at Thirty Six Degrees
Until and unless English players discard such stupid and entirely false delusional thoughts they have, English football wouldnt reach anywhere in the near future. Really it looks like its time for one whip-cracking disciplinarian manager like Capello or Mourinho to take over……….
Let me ask you something. How many Italian players, which were picked in the World Cup squad, played abroad in the spring of 2006? None. This has nothing to do with players playing home or abroad. It has to do with a coach able to pick Green and having the courage to bring Agbonlahor into the picture (like you said).
Repeatedly I have said that Wenger is the man, but we will never get him. Mourinho has his flaws as does Cappelo, but the are better options than anybody else.
mickey got it all wrong n is a fu… bit of crap. as opposed 2 mickey, none of the croatians would have shit on their team 4 greener pastures ( he ditched lfc when we needed him most n forgiveness is out of the cards). as i said he’s got it all wrong. croatians players play with heart , unlike most england players 4 their country.
ask urself why technically inferior players like kyut can play alongside talented players like van der vaart 4 the netherlands. because they play with their heart… similarly frings n podolski both play 4 germany…
the fa needs someone with balls who can drop stars (like capello) but who can admit wrong decisions n focus the media attention on himself rather on his players(morinho)
n plz stop the f… gerrard n lamps can play with each other but not in a 4-4-2 formation.
in 4-4-2 gerrard should be more defensive n lamps given freedom( not both). there is also 4-5-1 formation.
here both can play alongside n n if need be wingers can be sacrificed to introduce both hargreaves n barry, downing as the mobile electron.but the striker should be crouch not rooney in such a situation. there’s also 3-5-2 ( not rooney n owen ) . interestingly both lamps n gerro can be played as sub- strikers.
england needs players with heart as hesky, crouch not superstars.( n wingers with some defensive talent, hence not swp but joe cole is good enough) yes it helps when stars have heart( rooney, gerrard) but it’s better 2 have a manager who can rest an underperforming player- a quality mc laren just did not have.
Great article mate very well written 9/10 id give you 10 but i dont agree with the points.
I also dont think Gerrard and Lampard can play together. Gerrard plays crap in holding role and lamps plays crap in the holding role. They both leave the midfield weak if they go up top together. For the good of england id play barry/Hagreaves and Gerrard because Gerrard can play better with the white shirt. I believe Gerrard will play well if played in the right role for england.
The part about playing abroad no. English players are more loyal i think and love playing in the league they grew up watching its the same for english lads we would play in england our entire career if we could.
I dont think agbonlahor needs a place in the start crouch and rooney are great but they need a natural midfielder witch david beckham is.
I agree harasuké about not just playing star names. I think players who are on form with their club should play. Rather than big players who are struggling for true form.
I completely agree with this article. They talked a lot about these issues on a recent edition of ‘Hard Talk’ on the BBC where Bilic was invited to give his opinion on the state of English football (he played for West Ham & Everton) along with Gordon Taylor & some journalist.
Bilic was pretty sympathetic & said that he would be wary of England in the WC qualifiers & nobody should underestimate them just because of this setback.
I’ve been wanting to see Rob Green wear the England jersey for at least a year now. Will it happen in our lifetimes?
Which Croatian player would WANT to be in the England team?
hi im from croatia its true that our guys play with heart thats is the same for english players but u miss 1 thing it was easy for croatia to play with no presure and english was under presure thay had to win 1 point in order to go to euro 2008 so i think that it happend while croatian team or how we call them at croatia “vatreni” had no pressure they had the euro 2008 in there hands!!!
Mister Me
i think some of them would be happy to play in englend team but these that played agianst englend team i think not it’s our nation’s pride to be able to compeate for our nation
dont forget before 15 years we were in war thats destroyed our country and the wounds are still here
here you can see what happened http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60umtyvy8vI
thats my pepole being killed and tortured by agressor!
P.S. sorry if some words are lack im not very good at english!!
see you at the world cup qualifications!!!