Oh dear. On a refereeing forum I sometimes check in on I
made the awful mistake of deciding to share my thoughts about the Euros: awful
not because of any associated pain, but because, once I'd started, I didn't
seem able to stop. And by that I mean: 2,642 words' worth of not being able to
stop.
So what am I going to do? Bin it out of sheer embarrassment?
Or post it here?
I think you know the answer to that. ;-)
In a nutshell, for the 100% who have no interest in reading
the whole rotten thing: England
weren't so bad; pundits are daft 'cos they judge teams on results rather than
performances; results are often a consequence of rather arbitrary and random
factors; and other things besides.
Cheers! :-)
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RORY'S CLOSING THOUGHTS ON EURO 2016 (AGED 40½)
What's really struck me at these Euros is how obvious it has
come across that a team's performance has been rated based on the result. A
team loses and there's all kinds of negative analysis, while the one that wins
is heaped with praise. It seems absolutely clear and I'm amazed that very few
are able to realise this.
England
vs Iceland is not a good
example, but if we look at something like England
vs Russia or Slovakia, or Belgium
vs Italy...
Italy
were winning 1-0. Belgium
should have scored an equaliser. Game should have finished 1-1. Italy scored a second on a breakaway when Belgium
were committed up front.
The pundits praise Italy
and slate Belgium.
But I know for a fact, had Belgium
got the draw, it would have all been about how they kept plugging away, didn't
give up, etc, etc.
England
drew against Russia.
People like Phil McNulty criticised Roy
substituting Rooney, as though that made a difference. But would he have even
mentioned it had Russia
not squeezed a last minute equaliser totally against the run of play? Or were England
already two goals up, as their display merited?
I've seen this time and again. I've wondered what would
happen if people were shown a game with the goals removed¹, without knowing the
result. Imagine editing all that out. You get to see the chances but you don't
know whether the keeper saved it, whether the shot crept across the line,
whether the penalty went in. Then judge the performance. I think it would be a
totally different picture.
But time and again performances have been judged on results,
which are often not a fair representation of how well a team has played, and
then we take it further by trying to find the underlying reason for the result,
such as games played over the year, the way youth is developed, and even
whether players are paid too much, too pampered, or have fancy toilets.
Wales were credited because they got decent results, even
though we dominated them. Gareth Bale was credited because he hit two free
kicks that went in purely because of goalkeeper error - not because of the
quality of the strike, but because of how the strike 'resulted'. Time and again
across this tournament I've seen it, and marvelled at the inability of the
pundits and experts to separate performance from results.
Wales are a good case in point, too, when it comes to
talking about England.
How many of their players came through the exact same system the English
players came through? How many of them play in England, have never played
overseas? How many of them live similar lifestyles? Less similar, admittedly,
given the number of Championship players they took, but their best player was
Aaron Ramsey, of Arsenal.
Wales come home heroes, because they got good results. They
were excellent against Belgium,
and I understand they were great against Russia too². But they were poor
against England, Northern Ireland, and arguably lucky to win
against Slovakia - and
without Ramsey they really struggled against a Portugal side who, though they won
the whole thing - results, again - few would argue were even one of the top 5
sides in it, based on performance.
Fine lines. Gignac comes on and scuffs one against the post
and suddenly all today's post-match analysis is totally different. Suddenly
Portugal are transformed from a team who create nothing, who sit back and wait
for a mistake, to a team who battle to the end, who never stop believing, who
work hard as a unit greater than the sum of its parts.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo is lauded, even though he missed 80% of
the final, and despite being a superstar player having a very average
tournament, a couple of flashes of brilliance aside.
And what about England? Well, I thought we played
really well in all three of our group games, and in another universe, on the
other side of the fine line, could have won them all³.
I actually thought Wilshere was good when he came on against
Russia.
I don't see any reason to judge him on the lack of games he played over the
course of the season, as everyone else seems to have done - Germany certainly
weren't lambasted for using Schweinsteiger - and I much preferred his energy
and desire to go forward than Rooney's ponderous, sideways ten yard passes,
which nevertheless had the pundit's endlessly declaring him man-of-the-match, a
midfield mastermind.
Rooney was good in 2004. Rooney has done some unbelievably
quality things over the years, and had some great seasons - but whenever I see
him, to me he's a player who gives the ball away far too often, has a very low
pass completion percentage, gets out of position in his desire to get on the
ball, has a really poor first touch, and rarely if ever does something I would
describe as 'world class'.
Yes, I'm biased against Wayne Rooney - possibly chiefly
because of how overhyped I feel he is - and also in direct proportion to how
biased people like Phil McNulty are for him. When he was lauded as having been
by far the best player on the park against Russia I felt we must have been
watching a totally different game. Lallana was excellent. Kyle Walker probably
our best player. But Wayne Rooney and his “midfield masterclass”?
By the time of the Iceland game I decided I was going
to watch Rooney closely and make a note of what he actually did, instead of
just saying, look, “he’s given the ball away again”, “look at that touch”. I got
my notepad out. Unfortunately for my experiment, he was excellent the first
twenty minutes – and scored the penalty – and so I gave up.
I wish I’d carried on. At about the half hour mark he made
his first really bad misplaced pass. Then I think there were five in a row.
Really, for the rest of the game he was awful. Woy should’ve pulled him off at
half-time, if not sooner. How could we expect to win a game with a ball-hungry
number ten who can’t make a pass or control it?
One of England’s
biggest problems, for me – and long has it been the case – is picking players
based on reputation. Players are picked because of who they play for (how many
only enter the England
set up once they sign for a big club?) and because of what they once were
(Rooney, Owen). They’re even picked because of what people once thought they
were going to be (Sterling).
It also seems like players are overlooked because they don’t
play for the right teams, or don’t have the right reputation, such as
Shawcross, Noble, Drinkwater, even Defoe (yes, there’s a random shout).
But here’s a novel thought: how about picking players on the
things that really matter, such as form, and whether they’re the right man for
the formation?
I think if Woy should face any criticism over selection decisions,
it wasn’t so much the team that faced Slovakia,
as so many of the pundits got up in arms about – again, I say, purely because
of the result¹¹ – but for the selection against Iceland. The team he put out
against Slovakia
was a perfectly good selection, and well capable of earning a win. Plus, of the
six changes he made, two were clamoured for (Sturridge and Vardy), two were
like for like (Clyne was excellent, and though Bertrand had a bit of a stinker,
it wasn’t to any great detriment), and the other two were understandable, and,
had we taken even one of our many, many chances, would have been said to have
come off.
Against Iceland, however, I couldn’t believe that Sterling
was recalled, and can only imagine it was done as an attempt to boost his confidence
– very dangerous thinking – while I was also disappointed to see Kane brought
back. For me, Kane was not only off it during this tournament, but also in the
month or so leading up to it. He looked tired, and I thought Rashford would
have been a much better choice up front.
Again, pick the players in form, not the ones who were in
form two months ago. Pundits like to say things like, “form is temporary, class
is permanent” – but that sounds like bunkum to me. That’s the kind of thinking
that took Michael Owen to the World Cup in 2006, simply hoping that something
of his previous self would somehow miraculously emerge, with zero evidence to
back that up.
A friend of mine, meanwhile, said we should have Fraser
Forster in goal. I do think Forster’s probably now the better keeper, and
arguably had a better season, but figured we’d be all right with Hart. He
couldn’t possibly make two clangers in a week, right?
Still, I don’t think we can totally blame the selection for
us losing the game, nor the players’ lifestyles, nor even how well Iceland
played. For me, it was the age-old England problem: mentality.
You saw it in their faces the moment they went 2-1 down. The
dread at contemplating what seemed to be unfolding. The weight of anxiety and
expectation. They looked stressed out. They looked tense and panicked.
Desperate. And desperation and tension and panic don’t often help footballers
make smart decisions, nor play to their optimum level, nor, even, have the
limbs working as they should.
Balls were misplaced, uncontrolled, passes going astray.
Rooney went from an excellent opening half-hour to completely falling to
pieces.
They had 70 minutes to get a goal back and they panicked.
Compare that to when Wales
conceded against Belgium:
it didn’t phase them, they just carried on as before, and it worked. But
something happened to England
– to not just all the players but to the guys in the dugout too – as it so
often does when the weight of expectation is too much.
Rabbits in the headlights. Paralysed by fear. Incapable of
doing what we know they can do, and do on a weekly basis in the Premier League.
And if you think the Premier League is the problem, count
the number of players from the other teams at the Euros who play in it. Or
count the number of players from the 4 teams who made it to the semis, where,
of the 92 players from those 4 squads, a full 38 currently play in the Premier
League or other UK
leagues (eg, Scottish or Championship) and a further 11 are former Premier
League players¹².
It’s not lack of winter breaks, or lack of overseas
experience, or not being good enough. It’s not rotating and resting a couple of
players here and there, and not therefore sticking to the same 11, as Shearer
likes to say. Yes, England
were amazing against Holland in Euro ’96 – but
then how does he explain the display that followed it against Spain, which we were extremely
lucky to escape from, thanks to a couple of dodgy officials’ decisions and our
one and only penalty shootout win?
He trumpets Euro ’96, but, again, it’s purely because of
results, because of one great performance (and a further great goal), and
because of how far we went. England
were poor against Switzerland
and fortunate against Spain.
How well-loved would that team have been had Spain gone through instead, as they
deserved?
Likewise, when Lineker harks back to Italia ’90, let’s not
forget that we only beat Cameroon
thanks to their insanity in the box, squeezed through against Belgium in the last minute of extra-time, and
won just one of our three group games, thanks to a header from a set-piece that
gave us a 1-0 win against Egypt.
In both of those tournaments there were some abject
performances, some lucky wins, and maybe a total of three great displays. The
only difference between then and now was that, by hook or by crook, they got
results and this team didn’t. But to say those two teams performed any better
than the current one would be stretching it, as far as I’m concerned.
I guess what I’m saying is it wasn’t that bad. To be honest,
I think we could play Portugal
next week – and give them a fit Ronaldo – and beat them convincingly. Denmark have
won this tournament. Greece
did it against a better Portugal
team than this one. Winning, results, lifting the trophy – when it comes to
knockouts and short-length competitions – isn’t necessarily an indicator of who
was actually the better team, or how well a team has performed. Goals decide
all that, and goals – or lack of them – are often the outcome of arbitrary,
fortuitous, and unlikely happenstance. So why we are so quick to judge the
performance of a team based on goals and the outcome of goals – the match
result – is beyond me.
Goals and match results are what happens when the sum of a
multitude of factors are taken into consideration, and two of the biggest
factors are randomness and luck. Selection and performance are about the only
things we can control. The rest of it is in the hands of fate.
Or, sometimes, in the hands of the referee, as the far
superior German team might claim after their defeat against France in the semis.
Still, that doesn’t solve the problem of what exactly
happened to those England heads when we went behind against an Iceland team who
then had even more reason to “park the bus” than they had in their previous
three games, and that’s what we need to address, because it’s an ongoing and
endemic problem that I can only remember being overcome – when rather than
panic and desperation, there was mental-strength and determination – by
Beckham’s legendary display against Greece in 2001.
Maybe it’s not a bad thing that Roy’s gone. Maybe had we made the quarters or
the semis – as a team we dominated went on to do, don’t forget – things that
needed to be looked at wouldn’t be, and the cracks would have been painted
over. Seeing Hodgson on the bench during those last fateful 70 minutes didn’t
exactly fill me with confidence – he was no Conte, no Venables, no Ferguson – and if ever a
team required a manager who could inspire them at half-time it was this one.
But it seems like he wasn’t that guy. That the vision of tomorrow’s newspapers
and Shearer’s scowling mug had already got the better of him. Paralysed into
fear rather than motivated into action. Hopefully we can get somebody who can
finally instil a winning mental attitude into the England football team, much as Ivan
Lendl seems to have done for Andy Murray. Someone who can pick the right team
for the right formation, superstars be damned. Someone who can look beyond a
player’s reputation, beyond what he was in the past, and beyond an unfounded
hope of what he might be in the future. And, above all, beyond any talk of
pressure and tactics and selection and media, someone who can toss his bread in
the air a half dozen times, and have it land butter-side up just often enough to
make the difference between going down in infamy, and going down in history.
¹ I know that teams play differently depending on the score,
which we could probably discern, but I think the point still stands.
² I didn’t see that one.
³ As well as very easily having drawn against
Wales,
and/or lost against
Slovakia.
Like I say, fine lines.
¹¹ I just watched the highlights again and it’s barely believable that we
didn’t run away with that game the number of good chances we created.
¹² There may be a few more former Premier League players that I’m not aware of.
PS Here's mathematical proof that England were actually the
best team there, given that we whupped Wales and Wales whupped Belgium; Belgium
whupped Hungary, and Portugal could only scrape a draw against them; Portugal
beat France and France beat Germany and Iceland - another team Portugal could
only draw with - while Belgium whupped Ireland, who beat Italy, who beat Spain.
Basically, whichever way you look at it we absolutely dominated the team that
dominated the team that put three goals past the team that won it.
Elementary algebra will show you that, had we faced Portugal
in the final, it would have finished something 12-4 to England. And
when you rank the teams using proper statistics, we see England were 1st, Wales
2nd, and the Republic
of Ireland joint 4th!
