The most imagination and initiative shown by a man in an England shirt on Friday night came not from any of the national team’s players but from a mischievous fan who somehow sneaked into the team locker room after the match.
Just moments after Fabio Capello’s side dealt its own World Cup hopes a potentially fatal blow with a miserable 0-0 draw against Algeria in Cape Town, the supporter remarkably negotiated several levels of security at Green Point Stadium and approached David Beckham while standing just feet away from the dejected team. The fan’s actions in flouting stadium regulations can’t be condoned, but there were millions of patriotic Englishmen back home who wished Capello’s team could display as much determination and drive.
As one of the radical ideas to rejuvenate the England team, which has not won a major tournament since the 1966 World Cup, former England player Stan Collymore, now an outspoken newspaper and radio pundit, has championed a revolutionary idea that is gathering a surprising level of support.
Collymore stated that England team members, millionaires all due to their riches in European club leagues, have had their will weakened by fame and fortune and are no longer sufficiently motivated to give heart and soul to their country. Furthermore, he says they have grown so accustomed to playing alongside highly technical foreign players for their English Premier League clubs that they are no longer comfortable performing alongside other Englishmen.
Collymore’s theory proposes that the England under-21 team should represent the nation, insisting the younger men are hungrier and more driven and would manage a higher level of performance than the current crop.
“The young lads still have it all to prove,” Collymore said. “They really want to be out there playing for their country and they wouldn’t hold anything back.”England came into the World Cup as the third favorite with bookmakers after an impressive run through European qualifying and with striker Wayne Rooney in rampant form. However, a pair of disappointing draws in South Africa, first against the United States and then Algeria, have left the English in third place in Group C and in danger of being eliminated ahead of the knockout stage.
The complete lack of verve and spirit in either display has exacerbated the increasing level of discontent and ill-feeling towards professional soccer players in England. Even Beckham, in his new post as an assistant coach after injuring his Achilles tendon, has shown more emotion in his role as a frustrated spectator than anyone on the squad.
Several members of the England team have been involved in high-profile incidents that have soiled their reputation, from John Terry’s affair with a teammate’s former girlfriend to Rio Ferdinand’s ban for missing a drug test to Ashley Cole’s repeated marital infidelities. The public perception, one which only grows with each fresh controversy, is that leading soccer stars are a bunch of overpaid miscreants who believe they are above the law.
That stereotype could be tolerated provided the national side play with style and passion and “represent the shirt” that carries the famous Three Lions emblem. That fire, though, has been woefully and puzzlingly absent at this tournament.
The USA result could be attributed to opening-game nerves. The Algeria debacle was simply a spineless, toothless display of ineptitude against an inferior opponent. Against a North African side with no recognizable stars and whose players earn a tiny fraction of the monstrous sums paid to the England players by their EPL employers, Capello’s men could barely muster a shot on target.
The Italian has tried to instill some much-needed discipline in the team, banning cell phones, ketchup, flip-flops and the infamous WAGs (wives and girlfriends) among a series of hardline measures, yet it appears to have had a reverse effect. Taken out of the cocoon of their pampered lives, England has flopped spectacularly and embarrassingly.
The England side is touchy about criticism and has a frosty relationship with the British press. Just last week, midfielder Joe Cole joked that when the media followed the team on a safari on a day off “we were hoping they’d get eaten by lions.”
If the lions were as tame as the three on the England shirt during this World Cup, the journalists have nothing to worry about. [end story]
Stan Collymore has a point. The players claim that representing their country is even more important than their club status (which as a United supporter makes me cringe). Do they really have the motivation or is it all hype? The USA still has much to prove on the world stage and their fight back in the second-half of the Slovenia match was proof of that. England, you could say, has much to prove also because they haven't won anything since the year I was born...which would be...err....15 years ago (haha). The Olympics have fallen prey to the same ideal...money, endorsements, instant fame.
The USA basketball team, which dominated international play for so many years it doesn't warrant a count, is a prime example of the star player curse. Losing in the Olympics to teams with very little basketball heritage was a cold bucket of water in the face for most Americans.
We invented basketball.
So in the Beijing Olympics, the USOC decided not to hire a pro coach to lead the team, but a college coach instead. Mike Krzyzewski, the highly-successful Duke University basketball coach, took over the reins and instilled a new approach...leave your ego, Bentley, and Cristal at the door. No pampering, no agents, no outside distractions, just hard training to make them into a unit. It worked. Backed by gritty play and teamwork (coupled with a little showmanship), the Americans once again stood atop the medal platform in Beijing.
Fabio Capello has tried to instill this same ideal into the England players. He removed the distractions and made his team endure a bootcamp style training...but it hasn't worked. They seem to resent the implication that they need to work hard to achieve anything. These are highly-paid, very successful footballers. They seem to find the motivation to perform for their clubs. Are they so far up their arses that they've lost sight of daylight?
They have one match to make it right.
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