As the England team bus rolled up at their hotel just off Cracow’s main square yesterday, there were a few gentle barbs from a welcoming committee of Ireland supporters, but the response was smiles and waves. To paraphrase a rather more celebrated Irish wit, England come to the European Championship finals with nothing to declare but their more genial disposition.
This, Roy Hodgson promised yesterday, will be a different kind of England, far removed from their torturous campaign at the 2010 World Cup finals, when the talk from the moment they touched down in South Africa was of a tense, joyless camp, and when anxious performances and poor results only increased tensions in that gated community in Rustenburg.
“I hope we’ve learnt from that, particularly in terms of where we are staying,” Hodgson said in an interview with the BBC’s Football Focus. “Last time was pretty isolated. I understand the facilities in Rustenburg were fantastic, first-class, as good as it could have been, but it was a bit isolated. Now we’ve gone to the other extreme, staying in Cracow, in a city centre hotel, so the players won’t be in the least isolated. They will be far from isolated.
“These might be famous last words, but I’m happy with it. If there’s one thing I was worried about, it was the idea of the golden cage, where the players have wonderful facilities but all you see are the other players, the backroom team and the hotel staff. It’s important to remember you’re part of the wider world.
“This is an important tournament and we should be pleased to be part of it. A tournament shouldn’t be a hindrance on your life. It should be one of the high spots. If you want anything to give you any enjoyment — and everybody will worry about what might happen if they don’t play well — then you’ve got to give yourself a chance to play well and be enjoying the experience rather than seeing it as a chore.”
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It was heartening to hear Adrian Bevington, the managing director of Club England, talk of players “buzzing” on arrival in Cracow, but really this applies only to the build-up to the opening match against France on Monday in Donetsk, a two-hour flight away. Once the action starts, as always, the mood will be dictated by performances and results. The hope is simply that a more relaxed mood in the build-up can have a positive impact on performance.
A relaxed mood means not allowing any tensions relating to Rio Ferdinand’s omission to be let outside the team camp. There are players who are known to be unhappy about the treatment of Ferdinand, not specifically by Hodgson but previously by Fabio Capello and by the FA from the moment that Anton Ferdinand, Rio’s brother, was alleged to have been racially abused by John Terry in a match last October. Terry denies the allegation, over which he will stand trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court one week after the tournament.
Ferdinand’s omission and Terry’s inclusion sit uncomfortably with some of those in the squad, but not as uncomfortably as the presence of them both in the same squad might have done — at least as things transpired, with Hodgson appointed so late that there was no time to get the two of them in the same room and try to resolve the matter. That counts as a “football reason” if not one based on footballing merits. But Ferdinand is absent, Terry is present and, while the issue remains a thorny one, of which we have not heard the last, the time for Hodgson and his players to worry about it has passed.
There are already more than enough excuses for England’s players to cling to if things do not go to plan — the late change of manager, the injury problems, the suspension of Wayne Rooney for the first two matches, not to mention the challenges of flying to and from Ukraine for all three group games and the age-old issue of end-of-season fatigue. But even if those excuses are mounting, it would be nice for once to emerge from a tournament without the need to hear any of them.
Getting through the group stage, which tends to be taken for granted at World Cup finals, will be a challenge. France, Sweden and Ukraine do not represent the stiffest opposition England could have faced, but it will be a stern examination, particularly with the central midfield options so depleted and with Rooney absent for the first two matches.
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There have been very few bullish statements, but Rooney, albeit without the tub-thumping triumphalism of previous campaigns, at least sounded an optimistic note yesterday. “We need to be sure we give our all and that when the tournament comes we try to win,” the forward said in an FA visit to the Vauxhall plant near Luton airport shortly before departure to Cracow. “If we do that and we’re not good enough, then we’ll hold our hands up. If we do that and have the quality in the right areas, I’m sure we will do OK.
“I don’t see why we can’t win it. We’ve certainly got the players and the quality. The new manager coming in has lifted the players and everybody. We expect big things of ourselves: to come out here and do well. If people don’t expect that, it’s down to them. As long as we expect it of ourselves, we know we’re good enough to get to the semi-finals or the final, so that’s the aim.”