Post by Macmoish on Jun 23, 2010 6:43:47 GMT
The Guardian/Richard Williams
World Cup 2010: English football's future at stake against SloveniaA growing revulsion with England's overindulged stars could lead to the reversal of football's so-called embourgeoisement
Poor England, who cannot escape their own history. When they return home from this World Cup, at whatever stage and in whatever shape, their next date with the public will be on 11 August at Wembley, where they are due to meet Hungary in a game which invariably brings them face to face with two uncomfortable and, particularly at this moment, highly relevant realities.
The first of them is that England are seldom as good as they believe themselves to be. This was made clear when the Hungarians of 1953 visited Wembley on a foggy November afternoon and administered a 6-3 trouncing to the side of Billy Wright, Stanley Matthews and Alf Ramsey, thus ending England's 90-year unbeaten run at home against sides from outside the British Isles. It is a lesson that has been repeated at frequent intervals over the last 57 years, without ever quite seeming to stick.
Second, it reminds us that even the mightiest of empires can crumble to dust. Hungary's victory at Wembley came in the middle of a 32-match unbeaten run that only ended the following year when, with a half-fit Ferenc Puskas, they lost the World Cup final to West Germany. They had revolutionised world football, setting new tactical standards and paving the way for, among other things, the Total Football of the 1970s. By the time Johan Cruyff and Holland commanded the stage, however, Hungary were no longer a factor in international football. They currently stand 57th in Fifa's world rankings, below Bosnia-Herzegovina and Tunisia.
There were special circumstances connected with the fall of the Magical Magyars, such as the defection of their best players to Madrid, Barcelona and elsewhere during the cold war. But there are also special circumstances connected to England's current position, and if things go badly this week we may very well be looking back at South Africa as the place where, after 20 years of unprecedented boom, English football began to follow the national economy into serious decline.
If Fabio Capello's side fail to make it out of the group stage tomorrow, or even if they fall at the first knockout stage and do not match the minimum expectation of an appearance in the quarter-final, it will mean the end of an entire generation of players. Capello elected to arrive in South Africa with the oldest English World Cup squad ever, and the thirtysomethings – David James, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Jamie Carragher, Matthew Upson, Emile Heskey and, of course, David Beckham – will participate in no more World Cups.
The medium-term consequences are obvious. Whether the Italian or someone else is in charge by the time Hungary arrive, the long-awaited switch of generations – widely expected to occur when Sven-Goran Eriksson stepped down four years ago – will finally have to be enforced.
Given the shallowness of England's talent pool in the age range of 19 to 25, the next coach will have a daunting job on his hands. As Sir Trevor Brooking pointed out last week, the members of England's current European championship-winning Under-17 squad will not be ready for action at the very top level until after the World Cup of 2014. But the next coach will also have to deal with something equally serious: a sense of public disillusionment.
It is not hard to imagine a widespread revulsion with England's overindulged, overrewarded stars leading to a reversal of the famous process known as the embourgeoisement of football. This was the phenomenon that took place in the wake of Gazza's tears in Turin, the Premier League breakaway, the publication of Fever Pitch and the national deification of Eric Cantona, and which, in a certain sense, may have reached its peak when the Booker Prize-winning novelist A S Byatt analysed Euro 2008 in the pages of the Observer. If a sense of distaste leads football to fall out of fashion in England, then the game's peripheral audience — the people Arsène Wenger calls "clients", for whom Old Trafford was expanded to 77,000 and the Emirates Stadium was built — will start to fall away.
Were England to find a way of staying in the competition this week and distinguishing themselves in the later stages, Wembley would be overflowing for the visit of the Hungarians in August. Were they to continue as they have begun, and go home with their tails between their legs, it would be no surprise to see an attendance below 30,000 in the stadium. That sort of figure will not pay the rent – or, rather, the interest on the debts the Football Association piled up in order to build their £798m showpiece. Goodness knows when the place would be full again, meaning that it will have to host even more concerts and other non-football events. And we know what effect that has on the playing surface where England's finest are supposed to do their stuff.
There are implications for the FA's entire operation, including the long-delayed National Football Centre at Burton upon Trent. One reason the FA will experience difficulty in identifying Capello's successor is that where there should have been a centre for the last 10 years, grooming new generations of English coaches to take over not just the national side but the top Premier League clubs, there has been a building site. In a financial crisis, Burton would be among the first targets.
A slump in the game's popularity would even imperil the prosperity of the Premier League itself. A rise in the rate of income tax has already made England a less attractive destination for the very top players, a change which is eventually bound to affect the league's worldwide box office appeal. A drop in the domestic enthusiasm for the game would further tarnish the glamour on which the league has built its reputation.
There may be benefits from the worst possible outcome. Perhaps professional football in England needs to restore a sense of proportion to its affairs and its expectations, and failure in South Africa might be the surest way to achieve that goal, albeit at great cost to the industry that has grown up around it. Either way, there is a great deal more than the pride of a few players and their manager riding on the result of tomorrow's match in Port Elizabeth, against a team ranked 25th in the world.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jun/22/world-cup-2010-english-football-future
World Cup 2010: English football's future at stake against SloveniaA growing revulsion with England's overindulged stars could lead to the reversal of football's so-called embourgeoisement
Poor England, who cannot escape their own history. When they return home from this World Cup, at whatever stage and in whatever shape, their next date with the public will be on 11 August at Wembley, where they are due to meet Hungary in a game which invariably brings them face to face with two uncomfortable and, particularly at this moment, highly relevant realities.
The first of them is that England are seldom as good as they believe themselves to be. This was made clear when the Hungarians of 1953 visited Wembley on a foggy November afternoon and administered a 6-3 trouncing to the side of Billy Wright, Stanley Matthews and Alf Ramsey, thus ending England's 90-year unbeaten run at home against sides from outside the British Isles. It is a lesson that has been repeated at frequent intervals over the last 57 years, without ever quite seeming to stick.
Second, it reminds us that even the mightiest of empires can crumble to dust. Hungary's victory at Wembley came in the middle of a 32-match unbeaten run that only ended the following year when, with a half-fit Ferenc Puskas, they lost the World Cup final to West Germany. They had revolutionised world football, setting new tactical standards and paving the way for, among other things, the Total Football of the 1970s. By the time Johan Cruyff and Holland commanded the stage, however, Hungary were no longer a factor in international football. They currently stand 57th in Fifa's world rankings, below Bosnia-Herzegovina and Tunisia.
There were special circumstances connected with the fall of the Magical Magyars, such as the defection of their best players to Madrid, Barcelona and elsewhere during the cold war. But there are also special circumstances connected to England's current position, and if things go badly this week we may very well be looking back at South Africa as the place where, after 20 years of unprecedented boom, English football began to follow the national economy into serious decline.
If Fabio Capello's side fail to make it out of the group stage tomorrow, or even if they fall at the first knockout stage and do not match the minimum expectation of an appearance in the quarter-final, it will mean the end of an entire generation of players. Capello elected to arrive in South Africa with the oldest English World Cup squad ever, and the thirtysomethings – David James, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Jamie Carragher, Matthew Upson, Emile Heskey and, of course, David Beckham – will participate in no more World Cups.
The medium-term consequences are obvious. Whether the Italian or someone else is in charge by the time Hungary arrive, the long-awaited switch of generations – widely expected to occur when Sven-Goran Eriksson stepped down four years ago – will finally have to be enforced.
Given the shallowness of England's talent pool in the age range of 19 to 25, the next coach will have a daunting job on his hands. As Sir Trevor Brooking pointed out last week, the members of England's current European championship-winning Under-17 squad will not be ready for action at the very top level until after the World Cup of 2014. But the next coach will also have to deal with something equally serious: a sense of public disillusionment.
It is not hard to imagine a widespread revulsion with England's overindulged, overrewarded stars leading to a reversal of the famous process known as the embourgeoisement of football. This was the phenomenon that took place in the wake of Gazza's tears in Turin, the Premier League breakaway, the publication of Fever Pitch and the national deification of Eric Cantona, and which, in a certain sense, may have reached its peak when the Booker Prize-winning novelist A S Byatt analysed Euro 2008 in the pages of the Observer. If a sense of distaste leads football to fall out of fashion in England, then the game's peripheral audience — the people Arsène Wenger calls "clients", for whom Old Trafford was expanded to 77,000 and the Emirates Stadium was built — will start to fall away.
Were England to find a way of staying in the competition this week and distinguishing themselves in the later stages, Wembley would be overflowing for the visit of the Hungarians in August. Were they to continue as they have begun, and go home with their tails between their legs, it would be no surprise to see an attendance below 30,000 in the stadium. That sort of figure will not pay the rent – or, rather, the interest on the debts the Football Association piled up in order to build their £798m showpiece. Goodness knows when the place would be full again, meaning that it will have to host even more concerts and other non-football events. And we know what effect that has on the playing surface where England's finest are supposed to do their stuff.
There are implications for the FA's entire operation, including the long-delayed National Football Centre at Burton upon Trent. One reason the FA will experience difficulty in identifying Capello's successor is that where there should have been a centre for the last 10 years, grooming new generations of English coaches to take over not just the national side but the top Premier League clubs, there has been a building site. In a financial crisis, Burton would be among the first targets.
A slump in the game's popularity would even imperil the prosperity of the Premier League itself. A rise in the rate of income tax has already made England a less attractive destination for the very top players, a change which is eventually bound to affect the league's worldwide box office appeal. A drop in the domestic enthusiasm for the game would further tarnish the glamour on which the league has built its reputation.
There may be benefits from the worst possible outcome. Perhaps professional football in England needs to restore a sense of proportion to its affairs and its expectations, and failure in South Africa might be the surest way to achieve that goal, albeit at great cost to the industry that has grown up around it. Either way, there is a great deal more than the pride of a few players and their manager riding on the result of tomorrow's match in Port Elizabeth, against a team ranked 25th in the world.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jun/22/world-cup-2010-english-football-future
