You know what Scottish people hate most about the English? Our apathy towards their nation. The fact that their hatred of us, which burns everlasting, is largely unreciprocated.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a purely Scottish trait by any means; the English are just as bad. We’ll go on for hours about the times we’ve got one up on the Krauts, and how it’s the rivalry to end all rivalries, but if you talk to Germans about who they’d most cherish beating in a World Cup final, ‘ze Niederländisch’ (the Dutch) would be ze answer.
So while the Three Lions struggling against lowly opposition they should hammer every day of the week (like Algeria, say) would be met with howls of derision north of the border, the fact that Craig Levin’s men were seconds away from dropping points to a country whose entire population is smaller than the Hamden crowd on Tuesday, draws a largely sympathetic grimace from the majority of England fans, myself included.
Scotland doing badly gives me the opportunity to return some small portion of the abuse my ‘mates’ up here have given me over 13 years, but it also makes an already fairly cynical nation utterly depressed and thus lessens my enjoyment of back-to-back England wins. Stephen McManus’s 97th minute header however, left the Tartan Army more jubilant than if they’d won 7-0 so, for the moment at least, a fragile peace exists between Scottish football and myself. Long may it last.
It could have been so different though, because in all honesty Scotland should be well on their way to Poland and Ukraine by now with 6 points. You can only imagine the smirking headlines the Scottish Sun would have come up with had it been England being held in Kaunas, because the fact remains, if you’ve got the world champions Spain in your group, you need three points everywhere else to stand a chance of going through as one of the best runners-up across in qualification.
I couldn’t help but smile as I heard the laments from sections of the press up here and the Tartan Army in general that, ‘we were kicked off the park’, ‘the ref did nothing to protect us’, ‘those boys’re dirty, cheating bastards’ ECT. I’m sorry, but you can’t field a team with savages like Scott Brown and cheats like Alan McGregor in it, and then expect to be ‘protected’ from team that employs the same tactic every team in your domestic league does: if you don’t get the ball, make sure you get the man.
Hasler’s challenge on Alan Hutton on Tuesday was different – it was a disgrace and if ever there was a need for UEFA or FIFA to take retrospective action against a player, this is it – but having played Lithuania in the last four Euro qualification groups, and given that a number of the home side on Friday ply or have plied their trade in the SPL, you’d think Levin would be tactically astute enough to be able to exploit the obvious gulf in class between the two teams. I don’t remember the Lithuanian captain ever winning the Champions League.
And the implications of not beating teams like this stretch further than 2012. There’s no point in beating France home and away if you can’t then consolidate the result with a victory over minnows like Lithuania. In terms of FIFA rankings its one step forward, two steps back, and despite it being widely accepted that these rankings are utterly useless in determining a team’s quality – Gabon for example are currently ranked 34 in the world, one above Sweden, two above Republic of Ireland and seven above Scotland – it is crucial to maintain a good position in them. Otherwise what happens is you get bent over when it comes to the seeded qualifying groups for international tournaments and have to play the world champions. Twice.
Luckily for the English, the draw for qualifying was made before the World Cup, when everyone still regarded Capello as a tactical genius, our midfield as world-class and Wazza as the model professional. As a result, our toughest opponents – on paper anyway, and if there’s ever a nation who should be aware how little this means on the turf, it’s us – are the Swiss.
They, not unlike Scotland, went for the one step forward, two steps back approach by beating Spain in their opening World Cup game and then failing to bag against Hondurus. Their performance on Tuesday night only served to reiterate both how inaccurate those FIFA rankings are – the Swiss are 17th, above the USA who got the last 16 in South Africa, and Ghana who beat them and reached the quarters – and how many substandard teams there were at the World Cup compared with those who didn’t make it (Republic of Ireland for example).
From an England point of view though, you’ve got the focus on the positives. You can only beat what’s put in front of you and say that, so far, England have done pretty well. Not brilliantly, but expectations have been matched and the team took competatent, and if you offered me this description as a blueprint for the next two years, I’d definitely take it.
Having just said the positives need to be the focus however, I’m going to start with the negatives, because there’s actually only one: Shawn Wright-Philips still being selected. GET SWP OUT OF THE GODDAM SQUAD. Get him out of the country, revoke his passport, introduce a height restriction to playing for your country that includes Aaron Lennon but excludes him, whatever; just get him out of the squad.
The man is useless. He looks dyspraxic whenever he touches the ball, can’t pick a ten-yard pass to Darren Bent (who let’s face it, isn’t exactly inconspicuous) and yet continues to be picked alongside Lennon, Theo Walcott and Adam Johnson. Why? The only thing he's got is pace and it’s not like any of the above can’t shift. Difference is, they can shift with the ball rather than just buzzing around distracting everyone, like the visiting relative that your mum’s made you include in your mates’ kickabout despite the fact even she knows he’s shite.
It’s not like he’s in sparkling club form either. The lad Albrighton’s making waves at Villa and Rodwell’s breaking into the Everton 11, whilst Shawn’s floundering around at Eastlands trying to convince everyone (or anyone) that getting a start and bagging against FC Timisoara means he’s gonna be getting a regular game this season. It’s yet another reason to wonder whether Capello’s translator and English tutors a) exist at all, and b) don’t sometimes like to tell him to say exactly the opposite of what he actually intends to do.
If he’s rebuilding the team around youth, why’s a 28-year old who’s been there or there abouts, not done it, and couldn’t find a t-shirt small enough getting his game over some of the under 21s – Rodwell, Albrighton or Wilshere to name but three – who got to the final of their Euro tournament last year, and got beaten by, guess who, ze Germans (and what did they amount to anyway?).
Maybe it’s going to be one of those things that seems blindingly obvious in hindsight but, for whatever reason wasn’t clear at the time: a bit like no one clocking Freddy Mercury was gay (the cross-dressing videos; the leather and biker moustache; Queen? No? No one put two and two together?). Perhaps in 20 years it’ll be on Eggheads: who did Adam Johnson succeed as England’s right-mid? Must have been good if he was keeping our hottest youngster out of the team. Oh…
Right, now I’ve got that off my chest we can move onto the positives. All of the four who scored over the international break needed goals, for different reasons: Rooney to try and get himself off the country’s collective darts board; Defoe to continue to cement his place as the nations number 9; Bent to try and shake his potential tag as the next Emile Heskey (apparently the his goal against the Swiss on Tuesday was the first time he’d hit the target, let alone the net, in 9 appearances for England); and Johnson to make sure that even amoebas on Saturn realise he is the best right-midfielder we have, so that Fabio will hopefully cotton on soon.
Joe Hart too had two very important games, the first in which he sowed himself into the number 1 jersey for the foreseeable future, and second in which he fulfilled that intuitive instinct all English keepers have, the need to something inexplicably stupid at crucial points of a match. The subsequent backlash (although fairly minimal due to the nature and consequences of the ‘mistakes’) will hopefully remind him not to be a twat, to leave the keepy-uppies for when United next visit Eastlands, and remember to always check the pitch for divots, and the ball in case it’s too round to catch. Apart from that, he’s looking good.
All I can hope is that when October comes round and the next squad is picked, Mr Capello remembers these performances and doesn’t just revert to picking according to who’s paid most at club level. The squad’s actually looking like it might be gelling and the gaffer’s started picking people because they can play together – Jags and Lescott for example who were a makeshift pairing chosen because of their Everton days together – and putting folk in their right positions (starting with the captain); the last thing we need at this stage is fat-cats back amongst the birds. They’re struggling enough trying to understand Capello’s pigeon English.
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