It is three weeks now since England were taught a lesson in counter-attacking football by Germany, and in those three weeks the deranged maelstrom of immoderate criticism has slowed. Now that the dust has settled I felt it might be interesting to look back at some of the media coverage of England’s performances at the World Cup and the tournament in general.
Because of our deep-rooted superiority complex, it is impossible for England fans to accept that we simply got out-thought by a better side. Instead we prefer to round on a scapegoat with as much constipated venom as we can muster. Amid the latest flurry of white noise, Alan Green (who isn’t even English and should therefore know better) still managed to stand out by openly encouraging English citizens to harass England players in public. Generally though it was the usual small-minded harrumphing and overuse of the word “disgrace”, although The Sun did itself proud with a typically hysterical demand to make David Beckham England manager.
In the light of this, I found myself feeling slightly disappointed when it was announced that Capello was staying on as England manager. Clearly it was the most rational call, but I was looking forward to Sir David positioning himself as a potential successor. Imagine it. He would insist on designing their suits himself but his would be distinguished by a crown and a huge pair of angel's wings attached to his spine. He would naturally not have the grace to retire and would act as player manager, using the system he pressured Sven into using in a defeat to Northern Ireland back in 2005, where Beckham looked great in the midfield "quarterback" role but everyone else was played out of position and made to look like an idiot. A huge entourage of sycophants would obviously be employed and his tailor would be allocated a seat in the dug-out. His management team would also include Tom Cruise, Donatella Versace and Mugatu from Zoolander . The FA would be forced to relocate the England team's headquarters from Bisham Abbey to the estate of Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, whereupon team meetings would be held against a backdrop of naked cherubs sculpted from ice and England players would be put through their paces in training dressed as Roman centurions.
In all seriousness though, I found myself thinking in the aftermath of the Germany game that the gnashing of teeth that accompanies every England World Cup exit is to some extent predicated on the basis that the journalists who cover England are to some extent unaccountable. The Fleet Street soccer pseud can sit in front of his laptop pontificating about total Football or how Joe Cole is the answer to England’s problems, yet had Cole been picked and played poorly, there is no imperative for the journalist to damage his own self-applied credibility by admitting that he was wrong. As a result the journalists cannot truly sympathize with the pressures faced by the players and managers, which feeds into the unrealistic expectations at the start of every international tournament. The players in turn come to resent the press and a barrier is created between the two. If you can stomach a few minutes of Sky’s loathsome (yet strangely compelling) Hold The Back Page, it is easy to understand the contempt in which these men are held by many professionals. The casual arrogance of men who have never played the game is quite breathtaking- they whimsically dismiss the attributes of highly decorated internationals and blithely pass off their ill-informed opinions as fact.
That said, the ex-pros who now earn a living as pundits are often little better. The BBC’s regulars (Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer) come off as smug members of an elitist boys’ club sitting in the ivory towers afforded them by their playing careers. Yet even they can’t hold a candle to Mark Lawrenson.
Lawro- yuk. Flown out to South Africa to watch the World Cup for free, Lawrenson spent most of the tournament acting like he would rather be anywhere else. During the engrossing semi-final between Spain and Germany, a Spanish move broke down. "Typical Spain" opined Lawro "always one pass too many". Indeed Lawrenson seemed to regard the whole tournament as an irrelevance that existed only as a set-up to his asinine one-liners. It is staggering that the BBC see his feeble one-liners as an appropriate use of license payers' money. What are those Reithian values- "to educate, inform and entertain"? Lawrenson patronises, irritates and disgusts. Increasingly it seems that he sees himself more as a light entertainer than a football analyst, so the BBC should pension him off to Crinkly Bottom where he belongs. With a few honourable exceptions (Clarence Seedorf and Jurgen Klinsmann the most notable), the BBC team were tiresome, boorish and complacent. I suspect that for a producer they are quite an intimidating bunch whom no one has the guts to stand up to.
Even the BBC’s noble attempt to add some gravitas by sending them off to do human interest pieces in various South African locations fell flat due to the complete lack of sincerity mustered. Shearer frowned so intently throughout one segment with some poor township people that it was almost possible to detect his remaining island of hair dissipating with every passing moment, yet somehow is was hard to believe that there was any real empathy there.
ITV, predictably, didn’t indulge in any attempt to take life seriously in their coverage, apparently labouring under the misapprehension that football is all just a bit of a laugh. The admittedly likeable Adrian Chiles did his best with some fairly bovine company (how Andy Townsend has become ensconced in the ITV studio despite a relatively modest playing career and no discernable charisma is one of life’s great mysteries) and it was all perfectly bearable until Chiles had to throw to the action, whereupon Clive Tyldsley spent England’s first two group matches lurching through Daily Mail-infused bipolar rants. At times it was like having direct line to the inner monologue of a demented London taxi driver. Then it was back to the studio where Edgar Davids, who adopted the demeanour or the artisan serial killer from Seven, spoke offhandedly of his dislike for Germans while treating his lowbrow colleagues with less respect than even they deserved. A ghostly apparition that resembled Kevin Keegan occasionally seemed to swirl around the studio but I might be imagining that.
ITV’s saving grace was that it possessed in Marcel Desailly the stand-out non-playing performer of the World Cup. Even when the rest of the crew were cheerfully patronising him for having the gall to care, Desailly rose above it by continuing to provide insightful technical analysis in harness with immense charm. The BBC should poach him and give him Lawrenson’s job.
This World Cup at first seemed destined to be defined by journalists and pundits complaining about the standard of the action, but while there were a few dull games in the first week or two, this always seemed to be an illustration of what spoiled brats football hacks have become. The day after the final, The Guardian ran three almost identical articles by different writers complaining about what a poor game it had been. It may be that the importance of the occasion added to the drama, but I thought that the final was utterly absorbing from half time onwards. Both sides missed good chances and Howard Webb’s admirable if slightly foolhardy quest to stem Dutch brutality without issuing a red card provided an interesting subplot. Not only that, passing ultimately triumphed over prescriptive anti-football when Spain won, and Andres Iniesta ascended to the level of the greats. Yet The Guardian (who interestingly did not feature a single article written by a coach, pro or ex-pro- they have obviously accrued such expertise amongst their staff that such a person would be extraneous to proceedings) chose to dwell on the negatives. Now it could be that this was an attempt to cater for their audience of cynical wearers of rectangular spectacles, but I think what is more likely is that football journalists are simply spoiled rotten. There is so much football for consumption these days that what drama and beauty it provides is lost on people who get to watch it from a press box.
Barney Ronay wrote an article during the tournament in which he accused the Spanish of playing “Coldplay football”, and I wonder if he might have unwittingly stumbled across the biggest factor behind England’s failures.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/08/spain-love-sterile-world-cup-2010 .
Ronay’s piece in some ways represents an idiosyncratically English perspective. Oddly for a people often perceived by others as cold, we tend to understand football on an emotional level as opposed to a technical one. I don’t agree with Ronay’s view (in fact it’s exactly the sort of conceited, ignorant self-important nonsense that has made me stop buying The Guardian) but I do think he is sadly speaking for a lot of people- football fans in this country will always favour goalmouth incident and physicality over patience and skill, and this is probably linked to the England team haven’t won anything for nearly 50 years. Perhaps if English fans and journalists became more worldly in their appreciation of the game, we might produce a team capable of the kind of ball retention that tends to win World Cups.