The Euros

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!