Euro 2008 failure - lessons learned
England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 might prove to be a blessing in disguise. For once there can be no excuses – we can’t blame penalties, we can’t blame bad luck and we can’t blame the referee – England simply were not good enough. They were not good enough on the night and, more importantly, they weren’t up to scratch for the entire qualifying campaign. The disaster means that England must now draw a line under the sorry episode and begin a rebuilding process that focuses on the World Cup in 2010 and the next Euro tournament in 2012. If the side (and I use that word rather than team deliberately) had qualified, it would have papered over the colossal cracks that are there for all to see. The same personnel and manager would have headed off to Austria and Switzerland and the deficiencies would have been overlooked.
The FA must now ring the changes. That starts with McClaren but should stretch deeper into English football. Losing to Croatia is no disgrace. They proved to be a strong side, comfortable on the ball and with a ruthless cutting edge to their game. Even losing away to Russia was not the humiliating result it was made out to be, but finishing level on points with Israel in a group league that spanned 12 games is embarrassing.
Lifeline
Lady Luck was smiling on England, willing McClaren’s side to make the finals by handing them a lifeline when all seem lost in the form of Israel’s surprise win against Russia. Even with the gods smiling down on them for once, they still couldn’t finish the job. The Israel victory wasn’t the only lifeline they were handed this week: the dubious penalty that allowed Lampard to reduce the deficit against Croatia was another reprieve.
Although the group was probably lost with the 0-0 draw at home to Macedonia, the 3-2 defeat to Croatia was a game that epitomised what went wrong throughout the whole qualifying campaign. Firstly, the goalkeeping was bad. Without wanting to blame Carson too much for allowing nerves to get the better of him, his howler summed up the farcical goalkeeping that typified England’s lack of success in group E. But the goalkeeping is just one aspect of a side that has been dysfunctional in every department. Defensively shaky, an inability to keep possession in midfield and a lack of invention and creativity going forward all contributed to the dismal failure.
Above all, what stands out about the England football side – and has done for a number of years – is that they do not play as a team. The midfield chaos that ensues every time Lampard and Gerrard share a pitch sums this up. They are both quality players who boss games when they play for their clubs, but there is not room in one team for the pair of them. McClaren, and Sven before him, picked the star players, not the best team. Going forward, that has to change. It’s no coincidence that England’s best performances in qualifying came when McClaren’s hand was forced, through injuries, to pick a team rather than a collection of big names. In came Barry and Wright-Phillips and all of a sudden there was a balance in the team that had been missing for so long. Teamwork is so important in the international game, as both Northern Ireland and Scotland have shown. Neither of them qualified, but they came close and did so in tougher groups than England’s, despite having comparatively limited resources.
Key player
Looking forward, England must decide who the team is going to be built around. There are a number of candidates, including Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney, but whoever it is, the team must be shaped to play to that person’s strengths. A formation built around a few key players may mean omitting some stars, but it has to be done. The manager must decide on a formation and stick to it. That means the team will play a certain way and when players are injured others can come in, know the system and fit in immediately. McClaren’s formations and tactics were dictated by injuries and that is not how it should be.
Another worrying sign is that there is no strength in depth in English football at the moment. Without the likes of Ashley Cole, Terry, Ferdinand, Rooney and Owen, England are not a force to be reckoned with. The second tier of players just can’t cut it on the international scene. Nobody summed this up against Croatia more than Wayne Bridge, who at times made me wonder which team he was playing for. On the bench we had Beckham, who has effectively retired from football to take up soccer, Defoe and Bent, who can’t get in a Spurs team that’s struggling this season. The quality just wasn’t there and it showed.
Average
Tactically, the Croatia game confirmed what everybody knew about McClaren – he’s distinctly average. Against Croatia, McClaren should have made changes in the first half. What was the point of waiting? Wright Phillips deserved longer on the pitch as he was one of the few plus points of the first half. Once England got level, why did they sit back and allow Croatia to get back into the game? It was naïve stuff and everyone watching on TV could see this. The errors he made were obvious.
So what happens now? McClaren’s replacement is key and time must be taken to find the right man. Perhaps another option would be to run the England football team as you would run a reality TV show: the public could vote on the team selection, the tactics and the substitutions. That way, we’d all be responsible, we wouldn’t make obvious errors, we’d have nobody else to blame, it would save the FA a lot of money and it really couldn’t turn out worse than this anyway.
By Tom Reed - MSN News Editor
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not those of MSN or Microsoft.
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