This morning I feel more jealous of my 13-year-old son than normal, and not just for the usual reason that he has his whole life ahead of him while I’m feeling dangerously close to clapped out, but because he has absolutely no interest in football. And none in patriotism, come to that. And, therefore, no interest in footballing success as an expression of patriotic pride. He spent Sunday afternoon playing a wrestling game on his PSP. Meanwhile, the rest of the family were enduring the well-documented horror show against the traditional enemy. Lucky boy.
I have tried, periodically, to engage Sam in team sports and national pride, but if the kid ain’t set up that way there’s not a lot you can — or should — do about it.
At the 2004 Euros, when he was 7, he announced that he was supporting Chad. “How have you even heard of Chad?” I asked. “Saw it on my globe, liked the name.” “But hang on, Chad isn’t even qualified for this thing. Chad’s not in Europe, it’s in Africa.” “Is that important?” he said. What can you do?
i say traditional enemy but I wonder if that is true any longer. Indeed, casting around for a new team to support, I found my eye drawn to the youthful, vibrant, multicultural Germans. A lot of people feel the same way. In a poll in The Sun yesterday, 71 per cent of respondents said that they now wanted the Germans to go on to win the trophy. Who would have thought it? Maybe the Second World War is finally over.
The easy option, of course, is Brazil. Samba football, the beautiful game, girls in bikinis on Copacabana beach, all those clichés. But I can’t get excited about Brazil one way or the other. We’ve probably had a war with them because, after all, we’ve had wars against most people, but not one that has left an emotional imprint.
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Who else? Ghana is the romantic choice but Ghana aren’t much good. Argentina and Portugal are both ruled out, obviously, both because of past misdemeanours against England and, more importantly, because of Diego Maradona and Cristiano Ronaldo respectively. So you turn to Holland, whom those of us of a certain age backed in ’74 and ’78 when England didn’t qualify.
The Dutch are our near neighbours, grow lovely tulips and have that sheen of liberal, laid-back appeal. They also fought on the right side in the war (well, most of them did, quite a large number actually joined the SS). But then, judging by their footballers, whom some Premier League managers now refuse to sign on the ground that they are too much trouble, the suspicion is that the Dutch are what the Germans are always accused of being but perhaps no longer are: arrogant so-and-sos. I amaze myself, but the Hun it is.
it may not feel like it this morning but Fabio Capello is actually getting off lightly. Partly because of his blameless personal life and partly because he looks like a serious dude, I think we haven’t quite shaken the idea that he knows what he’s doing, even though it has become obvious that he doesn’t. He seems to be avoiding the worst of the opprobrium heaped on his predecessors, the oversexed Swede, the inept, bucolic, rosy-cheeked McClaren, and so forth.
My issue with Capello is this: why is his English still so bad? Indeed, over two and a half years, why has it actually got worse?
On Sunday he had regressed to comic- opera Italian, claiming “I-ah no understan” any question regarding his future. I know that the English aren’t in much of a position to complain about learning foreign languages — although Sir Simon Rattle managed to master fluent German when he took over the Berlin Phil — but Capello is a bright guy. Or supposed to be.
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At £5 million a year, couldn’t he have hired a decent teacher? Couldn’t the FA have insisted? Could one of the many things that went wrong in South Africa possibly be that the team didn’t understand a word their boss was saying? It’s an obvious point, but often obvious is correct.
I gained sixth place out of 20-odd in the traditional office predict-the-results-of-the-group-stage competition. Respectable, but could have been so much better. If New Zealand hadn’t got that late equaliser against Slovakia, if Italy and France hadn’t been so bad ... on such fine margins does top-level sporting guesstimation turn.
The runaway winner here on the Times Magazine was our picture editor, Graham Wood. Graham freely admits that he has about as much interest in, and less knowledge of, football than my Chad-supporting son. His prediction method is to fill in a variety of random 1-0s, 1-1s and 2-1s as the mood takes him.
Still, at least a bloke won for once. Usually it’s a girl on the fashion desk, basing her predicted scores on which players she fancies and the colour of their shirts.