THERE’S no doubt in my mind that Steve McClaren has to be the man to take England in to the Euro 2008 finals if they get the result they need against Croatia tomorrow.
For the record, I don’t I think this will be a problem. They’ve qualified already and I can remember in my time at Liverpool, after we’d won the league with games to spare we’d struggle to win again because you’re not as committed to those 50-50 challenges.
So England will achieve the draw or win they require to finish in the top two of the group – which is what the England manager was always asked to be judged on.
It doesn’t matter how you get there, he’ll have done the job he said he would and he has to be backed to see the campaign through to next summer.
But it’s not the coach we should be looking at changing in the English game anyway – it’s our whole mindset and attitude.
What I dread most about this week is, after all the doom and gloom, England will clinch qualification for Austria and Switzerland at Wembley tomorrow and it will be the same old ‘right we can go on and win this now.’
It’s that sort of hype and hysteria every time England get to a major tournament – and I’ve got no idea where it comes from.
The only time I can remember an England team punching above their weight in a tournament is in the 1990 World Cup when they reached the semi- finals. They got to the last four in Euro 96 but that really wasn’t good enough considering they were they hosts – so it’s almost 18 years since England actually had anything to base their optimism on.
Of course it is important to get to the European Championship next summer but while we all know that something is fundamentally wrong given the fuss we’ve made about getting through this group, it’s not just at McClaren’s level that those problems lie.
Because until the FA sort out the structure of the game and the way that young players are brought through, England’s performance at major finals won’t improve a bit.
It’s something Trevor Brooking has been banging on about for years, almost up to the point where everybody’s telling him to shut up. But he won’t and he shouldn’t because what he says is right.
It’s technique that needs to be worked on so we can eradicate the deficiencies that young players develop at an early age.
From the ages of eight to 13 or 14 we should forget all about setting up youth leagues and tournaments and handing out all sorts of awards to young footballers. Yes, they learn how to win and be competitive, but what about work on their ball skills and technique?
My son is at school and he plays for a team that won 9-0 the other day. But my reaction to that is, so what?
Some lad scores five goals and loads of parents shout and cheer on the touchline, but what’s the good of that in the long term? They’d be shouting a lot louder if that kid became good enough to score in a World Cup final for England.
But the chances of that happening are pretty much nil while we’re all so obsessed with this idea of being too competitive too early.
Kids need to be taken away from that environment completely and just work with coaches who can produce players with technique, and players who can use that technique when they’re under pressure.
Learn how to do that and you become such a good player that you soon pick up how to win and get that competitive edge. That will always come to you when you start playing matches anyway, but those precious skills you need to be a top footballer won’t.
Other countries have grasped this and these are the countries that leave England behind year after year, regularly getting to semi-finals and finals of major championships while we get left behind in the quarter-finals or even further back.
In this country our world class players come though despite the system not because of it. And I think at the moment Steven Gerrard is the only one who would get anywhere near a World XI.
It’s the FA who can do something about this and it’s time they did. Time Brian Barwick stepped back and took the decision to try to leave a legacy.
In 20 years time England could be challenging to win things on the world stage and we’d be saying ‘this came about because of what Brian Barwick did. He revolutionised the way players are brought up and look at all these great players’ we’ve produced’.
Because if there’s one thing the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign has shown us, it’s that English football needs overhauling all the way through before you even start looking at putting Steve McClaren out of a job.
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