Since last year's World Cup debacle, I've resisted passing comment on the state of football, basically because I haven't seen the point in falling into the tired old "told you so" blogging that serves little purpose.
However, following the events at the weekend when Israel gifted a lifeline to England, I'm already bracing myself for the pointless jingoism ahead. Surely, Israel's win against the clueless Russians merely illustrates how poorly England performed in Moscow in aiding the Russians back into the game. Yet this point will be glossed over as McClaren's hapless millionaires ponce around against Croatia on Wednesday.
Prepare for the worst as England go one down, and struggle for the rest of the game before scraping a desperate equalizer just before full-time and thus qualifying for Euro08. This will be the cue for over-optimistic national pride, and the launch of an eight-month media campaign of hyping the England team as potential tournament winners, and very lucrative it will be for this venal shower of mediocrities.
Heard it all before? Yes, every tournament. Remember Japan 2002? England fuck up in the qualifiers (in the belief that beating Germany 5-1 gave them instant qualification), and THEN fucked up against their last game against Greece AT HOME. Yes, Beckham earned a fortune from that last-minute equalizing free kick, but it was Germany's failure to beat lowly Finland that actually helped England avoid playoffs. This has been written out of English football history. Incidently, the apaulingly weak German side that suffered that 5-1 defeat went on to reach the final.
(England went out attempting to play Brazil with Danny Mills at right back!)
And already, prior to them Croatia game on Wednesday, "Stevie" Gerrard is in front of the microphone blathering on about how they're all going to try extra especially hard this time. Like last time. And the time before.
Somebody tell them to shut up, and just play. Wouldn't it be nice even, if they admitted that it was probably better to forego the sponsorship, and the concomittant glossy high-profile that goes with it in order to concentrate on getting the job done. I'm sure that John Terry would argue that his £100,000+ a week (that's sterling, not dollars) isn't enough to live on, but I'm he could make ends meet if he tried.
Failure to qualify may do English football a favour. Denied the advertising riches that qualifying would guarantee, this over-paid bunch of under-performers, excluded from the honeypot, may question what happened, and some may realise that it was something to do with them!
Oh, by the way. England are world football's Newcastle. Big reputation, little to show for it, an the rest of the world knows it.
No comments:
Post a Comment