ENGLAND have booked themselves into a summer rollercoaster ride In South Africa – and they have done it in some style.
The question is can they now adopt a winning style that will bring the World Cup back to these shores?
In an attempt to upset England’s romp to qualification, Croatian manager Slaven Bilic suggested that under Fabio Capello our national side had lost some of their ‘Englishness’.
While accepting this was just a poor wind-up, the former Everton defender might just have hit the nail squarely on the head when it comes to the next stage of England’s journey towards a second World Cup win.
I would be very happy if Capello – placid and pragmatic in his approach to plotting the course to Africa – now went all Italian on us!
There is a good reason why above the Three Lions there is only one gold star (goodness me, handing out stars harks back to primary school doesn’t it?), while around the red, white and green tricolour that bears the legend FIGC there are four of the gilt-edged acknowledgments you have won the biggest sporting prize on the planet.
The Italians have worked out how to win – without having a team that really should have won.
Putting the pre-war successes aside (Vittorio Pozzo please forgive me), Italy’s wins in 1982 and last time out in Germany show why sometimes the means justifies the end result.
In Spain the Azzurri limped through their group and were given no chance in the second phase as they faced an Argentina side equipped with the fleet-footed boy wonder Diego Maradona and a Brazilian team that was probably one of the best never to win a World Cup – Socrates, Zico, Falcao, Eder et al are probably all still wondering how on earth it all went wrong.
But a refusal to give in to the odds stacked against them – helped by the plundering genius of Paolo Rossi – Italy came away with the cup.
Four years ago a fragmented side of ageing stars and up-and-comers somehow found their feet with Fabio Cannavaro at the helm on the field and again took the ‘best in the world’ title when they transparently were not!
Now Capello, who knows all about English pride having scored against England at Wembley in 1973 to secure a 1-0 win for the team in Savoy blue, has to imprint that ‘win whatever it takes’ mentality into his charges in pristine white.
In the recent past England World Cup campaigns have seen the extremes of self-doubt or burgeoning over-confidence wreck promising prospects.
If Capello can instil a bit of that Italian bloody-mindedness into the team in the run up to the finals there is a chance – and a good chance at that – that England will come home from South Africa not only with plenty of pride but maybe even a trophy to show for their efforts.
Let’s face it, when Sir Alf and the boys of 1966 won the Jules Rimet there were times when it was neither pretty or clever.
Sometimes winning is everything!
STUART GRAY this week became the latest management casualty of the new season as he parted company with Northampton Town.
The simple maths of this are that there have now been five ‘departures’ within five weeks of the start of the season – at this rate around half of the current Football League and Premier League clubs will have changed their boss by May.
Obviously that will not be the case – but you do wonder what clubs are trying to achieve at times.
Early-term changes are nothing new and the age-old excuse that ‘we have not made the start we wanted’ is trotted out so often from the boards of football clubs up and down the country that it is barely worthy of column inches in the papers or airtime on radio or television.
However, the knee-jerk reaction that has blighted Norwich City, Barnsley, Lincoln City and Northampton Town – Colchester United’s change-over was due to their manager going to Norfolk – does make you wonder just what level of consultation goes on at some clubs between board and manager.
Admittedly the Canaries’ dreadful season’s opener losing 7-1 at home to East Anglian rivals Colchester was a bit of a shocker.
Given that Carrow Road director Delia Smith is a dab hand at dealing with matters with a sharp kitchen knife in hand, the severance with boss Brian Gunn was understandably swift, and up and down the country sports editors couldn’t resist the ‘Gunn fired!’ headlines.
But since that reaction City’s results have reflected those of a side in transition, finding their feet at a different level as they restructure their squad – why Paul Lambert should be more adept at this job than Gunn, who put the squad together, is questionable.
Admittedly Barnsley’s directors had to be concerned by sinking straight to the bottom of the Championship, but was discharging Simon Davey – who took the club to an FA Cup semi-final – really the kind of surgery needed?
Mark Robins takes over with the Tykes deep in the relegation abyss – and I’m saying this in the second week of September. While he’s done well in difficult circumstances at Millmoor, is there any guarantee he will be able to turn things around more successfully than Davey?
At Lincoln City former Town boss Peter Jackson made his exit, while just days ago a former Barnsley favourite Gray left Northampton.
Both sides sit in mid-table in League II and, given the current campaign is barely weeks old, you have to feel that to decide at this stage that the current set-up cannot go on to make a play-off place or even push for promotion is a little premature.
Having never had the kind of money to ever consider being a football club director, I cannot even begin to contemplate the kind of panic that one adverse result produces in the boardroom – let alone a string of defeats.
But to make these kind of decisions so quickly after the season’s start suggests there is as much reliance on astrology and reading tea leaves as there is on understanding the vagaries of football – such as form, injuries, suspensions and sheer bad luck!
While I would not go so far as to suggest a ‘manager transfer window’, surely a moratorium on changing boss until Halloween (when all the dastardly deeds could be done at the witching hour, and the thought of managers entering the chairman’s office to find out whether it is ‘trick or treat’ does appeal to me) would at least give everybody a chance to prove their worth.
