It's just not cricket
John Brewin
Archive
For those of you who don't reside in England, here's a truism about football: it is currently the nation's second favourite sport. And despite the return of the Premiership and, this week, the Champions League, those of us on this sceptered isle are really struggling to get into it.
And those of us who are in the business of reporting on 'the people's game' are casting a rather envious eye on our compadres in the nation's summer sport of cricket.
Yes, comparing Wayne Rooney favourably to Freddie Flintoff is really rather difficult at the moment. One is receiving applause every time he even moves, the other foolishly chooses to dole it out in ironic and crybaby fashion to a Danish referee with a reputation.
And, to make a direct comparison of England captains, Michael Vaughan to David Beckham is also not in the footballer's favour. Both are players of immense style, and attractive to endorsements, though one doubts that Quorn are shelling out the megabucks to the Yorkshireman that Beckham has received from his various multi-sponsors.
Vaughan has led his men throughout the summer with calm and poise and has only headed for centre stage when his team have needed him, like his century at Old Trafford or a timely catch in the outfield. He has placed his trust in lieutenants like Flintoff and Strauss and been rewarded. Few could doubt his tactical nous either after England's historic Ashes win showed up the supposedly unbeatable Australians.
Beckham, meanwhile, will only operate under the spotlight, his new England 'quarterback' role dimming the output of the two best midfielders in the Premiership in Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. His ability to inspire is also hugely in doubt; instead of concurring with Beckham's view that he really should calm down after his booking against Northern Ireland, Rooney chose to respond in Anglo-Saxon invective.
The talk is that Beckham has lost the dressing room, and that his influence over Sven Goran Eriksson is too great. Vaughan's popularity among his team-mates is undoubted and few could ever imagine the inscrutable, smile-free zone that is England cricket manager Duncan Fletcher ever being influenced by anybody.
Such comparisons are, of course, largely trite. Football press conferences in recent weeks have been full of weak questions along the lines of 'what lessons can be learned from England's success at cricket?' In the hands of the likes of Beckham and Lampard, the answers to these are hardly going to be earth-shattering or anything but dull platitudes. And we visited this place just two years ago when England won the Rugby World Cup.
As it happens, England became very bad at rugby very quickly and football once again came to the forefront with Rooney's exploits at Euro 2004 uniting the nation. So too Liverpool's classic Champions League Final in Istanbul. And football will soon return to the forefront once the dust (and Ashes) have settled around the heroics of Vaughan, Flintoff et al and they set off to a winter series in a different timezone televised only on satellite televsion.
But on its return to the forefront, can we expect football to live up to the attention? It has to be said that the near-trademarked 'most exciting league in the world' is hardly producing heart-stopping entertainment at present.
Chelsea line up against Anderlecht. The expected 1-0 victory was soon to follow. Chelsea, who have spent an average £10m a month on players in the two years since Roman Abramovich swooped down in his chopper, lead the league with a 100% record having conceded no goals.
Their rivals are already faltering. Arsenal have lost two games, permanently lost the services of Patrick Vieira and, temporarily, those of Thierry Henry too; while Manchester United are suffering from injuries, age and the cloying grip of a bearded trailer-park magnate. Rafa Benitez's Liverpool seem to have this European lark licked, but are as hopeless of winning the Premiership as they have been since its inception. Even scouse godhead Jamie Carragher admits that.
The t-shirt printers are probably already knocking out pre-emptive batches of 'Chelsea 2005/6 Champions' garments. It's that uninteresting. And it wouldn't be so bad if Chelsea played the flashing blade stuff that Arsenal and Manchester United have treated us to in the past. Tuesday's 1-0 win over Anderlecht was as predictable as a Big Brother contestant mounting a media career.
And even the champions are feeling the pinch of indifference. The Anderlecht game was undersold by 10,000 seats and their home fixture with West Brom had to be advertised in London's Evening Standard to even approach a capacity crowd. At £48 for a game in which Bryan Robson chose to play an understrength team because he had little hope of winning, it seemed an extortionate price to pay for 90 minutes of one-way 'entertainment'.
Chelsea may have Mourinho, a man of intelligence, humour and the manner of a minor Bond villain but that's where the fun stops with his club. The sharp fangs of Peter Kenyon and the mysterious origins of Abramovich's wealth cast a shadow, while the team's attritional 4-3-3/4-5-1 style, with deflected goals a particular forte, has won the hearts of only the most fickle.
And there remains that middle tier of Premiership ne'er-do-too-wells, of which Middlesbrough, embarking on their second successive European campaign, are the archetype. Capable of beating Arsenal but never able to challenge for major honours or reach the Champions League, their modus operandi is rigid, structured and, ultimately, a bit dull. And their manager Steve McClaren is the heir apparent for Sven Goran Eriksson's England job.
Down at the bottom we have the teams destined to struggle. In truth this was the most exciting of all last season when all four teams had a chance of staying up on the very last day. Lack of money and sexiness means that Wigan (despite their offering of a berth for Michael Owen), Sunderland and West Brom, depressingly confined to another season of struggle despite their great escape, will never attract top players or a vast audience.
Sunderland, despite winning the Championship last year, and reaching the promised land of the Premiership again, play before a stadium with a remarkable amount of empty seats. All hope has been abandoned before they'd even entered here. And their record of five played, five lost, reflects that the ennui of the people of Wearside is justified.
Jonathan Stead in front of an empty Stadium of Light seating section.So, to the Champions League, where only Real Madrid's defeat to Lyon was the only story of genuine note among predictable 1-0 wins for the likes of Juventus and Bayern Munich and the disciplinary tea-cup storms that surrounded Rooney, Van Persie and Vieira on Wednesday. This competition created to feather the nests of the rich rarely catches light until the turn of the year and the knock-out stage. It's a long time and a huge amount of games to wait.
Football, for those of us who care about its spirit, has become bloated, spoilt and unattractive. Maybe its true heart can be found in the lower leagues, where, away from the glare of the media, crowds are on the up. Perhaps fans are seeking the feeling of belonging and family that the big league no longer allows, the feeling of loyalty and togetherness that the likes of Malcolm Glazer will never be able to buy, no matter how much a hedge fund lends them.
So how can we recover the lost ground? Just as cricket and rugby were given a new lease of life by victories over Australia and football was reborn in this country after Italia '90, we need a success from our national team to recover the lustre we have lost.
Sven, David, Owen Hargreaves, it's over to you...
Source :
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/st ... nd&cc=5901
