Geoff Shreeves : Tell me, what did you say in that huddle right at the end?
Steven Gerrard : None of your business.
How you see Gerrard’s reaction to a perfectly relevant question asked by one of the most eminent sports journalists of our time will probably depend on how you reacted after the result, a 3-2 victory over title rivals Manchester City that could well set Steven Gerrard on his way to that much coveted Premier League title.
But Gerrard’s dismissive and arrogant attitude to a rather pertinent question is disappointing, both as a football fan but particularly as an England supporter, who has seen the team falter at the biggest occasions largely due to the fact that the England team are the champions of misplaced arrogance.
Yes, a side boasting Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney over the years should have done far better than their usual farewell from the quarter-final stage. But the question is, have England ever really been good enough to win a major tournament in the recent past? Or is the English media guilty of overrating its stars – Gerrard being one of the prime examples?
When Greg Dyke, the chairman of the English Football Association, assumed office in September last year, he sounded optimistic at the expense of sounding harsh. He said that he wanted the national team to reach the semi-finals of the European Championships in 2020 and to lift the biggest prize of them all in 2022. A tall order, a rather bold claim, but a welcome change from the usually bullish comments of former chief David Bernstein, who claimed that England were good enough to win the World Cup in Brazil.
Among the areas he identified as those in which the English system had done horribly wrong included the lack of top-level qualified coaches, the way in which English youth players are routinely pulled out of national team squads instead of trying to give the players a longer run in the team, and went on to lament the handful number of English players at the highest level of the English game, a number that is dwindling by the day. I suppose, the lack of a consistent brand of football, right from the grassroot level, is also one of the factors that has seen the National team fail at the biggest stages. But a rather ground-breaking response was offered by former US star Alexi Lalas when he concluded – “Maybe they’re just not very good.”
Or certainly, they haven’t been as good as the English themselves thought they were. Maybe, when they indeed have been good, impressive performances at the global stage have been few and far between. In hindsight, if the team wasn’t burdened by the weight of expectations back home, much of it cultivated by the eccentric English media, maybe the team would have put up a better showing. Far too many If’s and but’s and maybe’s.
Ever since lifting the World Cup in 1966, England have won only five knockout games. Yes, FIVE! The two most recent of those victories came against Denmark in 2002 and Ecuador in 2006, two games that were followed by the inevitable. A quarter final exit – both masterminded (ignore the pun!) by Sven Goran-Eriksson possibly represented a natural high water mark for a nation which has done little to dispel their fondness for mediocrity.
And England’s problems only compounded when they failed to qualify for the Euros in 2008, and were hammered 4-1 in the World Cup of 2010 by a German side that were without their skipper Michael Ballack. Well, Capello’s side didn’t even need the heartache of penalties that Sven’s side invariably guaranteed. They were outclassed by a German team which seemed to be miles ahead of England, embarrassingly so since the TV pundits were rather presumptuous in their insistence that England ‘should overcome’ a ‘poor German outfit’ prior to kickoff. Yes, Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal right on the stroke of half-time could have changed the complexion of the game, and Capello’s fondness for Gareth Barry’s sideways pass to the extent that Steven Gerrard was forced to play on the right wing was baffling. But the real problem that has stood the test of time is that of English arrogance, blind faith or bullishness in other people’s terminology, when it comes to the game they invented.
It is the same air of untouchability or superiority that allows English players to claim they have a chance at the Euros in 2012 after they went through the group undefeated, merely clinging on to a draw in their only real test against France. The same arrogance that sees them claim they could go all the way in the World Cup after a nerve-wracking 1-0 win against Slovenia of all nations. A nation that had previously won a single match at the World Cup.
It is the arrogance that sees Gerrard being regularly compared to the Xavi’s and Iniesta’s of the planet, and Rooney to Messi, a comparison that only puts unnecessary pressure on one of the best players of this generation, but also belittles his overall contribution as a playmaker-cum-striker for Manchester United. Yes, Rooney gave us hope that he could be the best thing to come out of Britain since George Best when he came bursting through in the summer of 2004 in Portugal, but has never really been able to graduate from one of the brightest young prospects in the game to a truly global superstar. Was he handicapped by the arrogance of the English press?
Likewise, Gerrard has been the darling of the English press for the longest time. But is Sir Alex Ferguson’s assessment that Gerrard was never quite “a top,top player” correct? Think about it. Gerrard, as well as Lampard, were never really in the league of Xavi, Iniesta, Pirlo and even their understated England teammate Paul Scholes. Both at their peaks, however, would suffer by comparison to say Zinedine Zidane or even Roy Keane at the peak of their own powers.
Do either of them match up to the ability of Clarence Seedorf or Edgar Davids? Don’t get me wrong. Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard are top players, capable of performing at the highest level of club football. They would make many a man’s Dream World Cup XI prior to the competition. Yet, at the end of the tournament, their performances have been hardly deserving of a second-choice XI. When you get down to the business end of the World Cup, it is a level for players who can trap a ball effortlessly and shift it to the nearest teammate, where passing and movement and technical ability counts a lot more than ‘putting in a shift’.
Yet, the English arrogance has never really allowed them to change their style – just walk down to any park in England on a holiday and count the number of times the kids are taught to ‘get stuck in’. Arrogance can only breed denial and superiority, and unless dealt with, it will continue to hinder the progress of a nation with so much talent in it’s ranks.
Until the English deal with their own arrogance – on the pitch, in the board room, in the press box, and in the stands, nothing will change. Nothing can change. They are not as good as they maybe think they are. They could have been, and they still can be. England are treading water, but they are not quite down yet.