Fans should not fall for old wives’ tale

Scrutinise anything but the football, you see. Football never wins or loses a tournament for England. Football is always second to card schools, faith healers, sex scandals and mercury rising — irrelevancies and frivolous diversions that distract us from getting to the heart of the matter. Often, the same inconsequential elements that are praised in victory are later blamed in defeat. Back home, a polarising debate centres on the informality of Eriksson’s regime, with players allowed to spend free time with partners, children and extended family. The old school is against it. They see the circus around the WAGs (media speak for Wives And Girlfriends) as an unnecessary disruption.

Sir Alf would surely not have stood for it and as, until now, Sir Alf is the only one to have mastered this competition, his view, even presumed in death, is what matters. The alternative is to laud Eriksson as a moderniser, one who has identified that the world has changed nappies and we must change nappies with it. A happy player is a good player. And when is any man happier than in the company of his wife?

The truth? The WAGs, like Eileen Drewery, Rock Of Gibraltar and Leeds United On Trial by David O’Leary, are irrelevant. Mystics, racehorses, books and girlfriends may get the blame when a team go down the pan, but in reality, football wins football matches. England’s success or failure here depends on whether Eriksson can produce a functional midfield and get the best from his limited options up front.

The only significance in the presence of Louise Owen in Germany is that, against Trinidad & Tobago, England’s passes had more chance of finding her sitting in the stand than they did her husband, Michael, in a scoring position. The fact that the Owens then spent Friday together is the least of England’s problems. There is a team here who can put 24 meaningful passes together when on occasions, under pressure, England barely manage two. Everything else is just chatter; but it is what we do best.

For the WAGs read Kevin Keegan’s bonhomie; among the explanations for an England team who lost their way after a disappointing European Championship tournament in Holland and Belgium. When Keegan succeeded Glenn Hoddle, his optimistic, enthusiastic nature was seen as the perfect antidote to a manager widely perceived as a cold fish. Hoddle was not popular with key players, including David Beckham, and had been publicly undermined by unflattering observations in Tony Adams’s autobiography. Keegan’s energy swept away the negativity. On the back of an upturn in results, all the talk was of how he had brought a healthy, positive attitude to the camp.

On June 4, 1999, the eve of a European Championship qualifier, Keegan addressed an issue familiar to all following England’s progress at this World Cup. “My approach is to relax the players,” he said. “The freedom that I’ve given them is not stupid, it’s trust. If they want to go shopping on Thursday, I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not a prison here.” Reporters were clearly much taken with his equanimity. “The only sign of strain was the wind that tugged the canvas walls of the interview room,” one wrote. The inference was clear. After Hoddle, Keegan was a breath of fresh air.

Only seven days later, the assessment of the same writer was less sympathetic. “He (Keegan) will now go on holiday for a few weeks and, in between a swim or two, will try to fathom how to repeat England’s impressive triumph in Poland in the qualifiers for the last World Cup. Perhaps he should put in a long-distance call to Glenn Hoddle between sips of his pina colada.”

The sneer in the mention of holiday pastimes and cocktails is pointed, as is the inference that England were better under the previous manager. So what happened? Between June 5 and 9, England drew two competitive matches, one in Bulgaria, with injury-depleted teams. Everything that was right was suddenly wrong. And what scurrilous tabloid applied such fickle analysis to a problem that clearly ran deeper than sun, sea and shopping? The Guardian.

When Keegan left, there was criticism of his desire to be as much a mate as a manager to his players, which had inadvertently given rise to a gambling culture within the England dressing-room. Yet, during the honeymoon period, the odd race night enjoyed by England players at the Burnham Beeches hotel, or a game of cards, was regarded as a harmless way to build team spirit. Ultimately, Keegan’s England fell apart not because he was a bluffer at poker but because, tactically, he had the equivalent of a low pair and admitted as much after losing to Germany. Eriksson has also come up short at two tournaments by not taking risks. Gambling on the field decides matches.

Yet while English football puts success and failure down to external, unquantifiable factors, it remains in denial about the serious issues. After Argentina’s 6-0 victory over Serbia and Montenegro last week, Eriksson was asked if his team could string 24 fluent passes together, with a goal at the end. His answer, that this was the way football was played in South America and was not the English or European way, is worthy of the debate now afforded to girls’ nights out and sleepovers at the team hotel.

Considering that Brazil and Argentina have won seven of the past 12 World Cups and Brazil are on the longest winning streak in World Cup finals history — nine matches, starting June 3, 2002 — should we not make more of an attempt to emulate them? Instead, when England talk of how another country do it, peripheral elements are often cited, not the heart and soul. The identity and whereabouts of Mrs Crespo at this World Cup are not half as significant as hubby Hernán’s back-heel into the path of Esteban Cambiasso for Argentina’s second goal on Friday, or the technical standards demonstrated throughout that move.

There is no doubt that good preparation can add to the armoury of a team, but the take on what that is will be completely conditioned by results. Speaking up for Eriksson’s regime before last night’s match, Jamie Carragher said that when Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, signed a foreign player, he insisted that he was quickly joined by his family to help him to settle. This argument carries weight because Benítez is a Champions League winner. Were his team bottom of the league, his opinions would be met by a chorus of: “What does he know?”

Results endorse wisdom. If Eriksson built on the most encouraging elements of last night’s performance to return to England a World Cup winner, it would become wise to include at least one squad member in all future tournaments that the manager has not seen play, when all logical individuals regard the selection of Theo Walcott as unfathomable. The fact that Ramsey won the World Cup in 1966 after refusing to recall his best striker, Jimmy Greaves, for the final has led to a clamour over the past few days for Eriksson to be similarly ruthless with Owen — as if dropping your finest goalscorer was a certain route to success. Of course, it is possible for England to win here without a Jimmy Greaves moment; picking your best players and passing to them sometimes works.

In the days when he had credibility, Ron Atkinson cut to the heart of our simplistic overview. About 20 years ago, it came to the attention of English football that Italians ate pasta and were not much given to downing ten pints of lager. The carbohydrate, H2O diet was then held responsible for all that was great about Italian football, as if vongole could make you pass better. It took Atkinson to point out that in Serie A, the team who were bottom of the league were eating pasta and drinking water, too, and good football might have a little bit to do with good technique.

In his days as world heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson was promoting a defence of his crown. In the build-up, there was a lot of talk of his mental state and readiness, the genesis of his psychological problems. Tyson sat on the podium, mean, glowering, uninterested. He listened to a Walkman and answered in a curt, dismissive tone. A female journalist asked an expansive question, attempting to peer deep into Tyson’s psyche. He stopped nodding to his music for a moment, removed his headphones and delivered the verbal equivalent of a right uppercut. “Lady,” he said. “If you can’t fight, you’re f***ed.”

Nobody would call Tyson a wag; but, in a scrap, he certainly knew what mattered.