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Come On England, Sod Off Carr
Since Capello made his comment yesterday about rather playing away than home, it made me think that, maybe as England fans we need to start having a good hard look at ourselves. Then reading the letter from Fraser Carr just a moment ago reinforces this belief further.
I genuinely believe, that for a country that is supposed to love football, and for a country that is supposed to understand football because we watch it week in week out, England fans show an unbelievable amount of ignorance when moaning about performances of the team, individuals, or picking on this player or that player. I appreciate football is very much a game of opinion, but reading some opinions, you wonder if some fans have ever watched a game of football before.
Then comes the most recent fashionable statement, "I can't be bothered to watch England" or "I'm not watching it, they're rubbish anyway". The bottom line is, if you're a football fan, how can you not support your country in the sport? I wonder if Fraser Carr enjoyed previous Olympics quite so much when the British team only won a handful of medals, I wonder if he enjoyed cricket before we beat Australia in the Ashes, I wonder if he was glued to his seat during the Rugby World Cup final when we beat Australia, and I wonder if he's bothered watching since that game when the Rugby team has not done so well.
I'd be interested to know who Fraser Carr supports, and I'd be interested to know if Fraser Carr still goes to watch said club when they are struggling for form or even get relegated. I know if my team get drawn in the cup, away from home, against lower league or non-league opposition, I'd be reasonably happy to come away with a 2-0 win where we dominated possession, and be happy that we got out without any major embarrassment, I think most fans would think the same, but it appears Fraser Carr is only happy when his teams play perfect football every minute of every game, and I can only assume that Fraser Carr has never actually tried to watch England at Wembley, because I was at the England-Russia game for the Euro 08 qualifier and didn't pay anywhere near £70 for my ticket.
In short, I believe Fraser Carr and his attitude is symbolic of the plastic football fan that does his (or her) club and country no good at all. We all want our players to show passion for the shirt, well maybe if our fans started showing genuine support and passion for the shirt as well then things might improve.
And by passion, I don't mean judging a team at half-time and booing, I mean supporting them for 90 minutes, plus injury time, singing songs, encouraging the players and then accepting the game for what it is, not a carefully-scripted play where everything goes the way you want, all the time, but a game of football, where anything can happen, that's surely why we all love it anyway!
Come on England!!
Andy The Wolf
...I don't have an argument for the people who say that they have never cared for England's results, and would far more like their club to win the Premiership than for England to win a World Cup. I disagree, but that's just my opinion. If you really don't care, that's fine - just ignore it all. And I think there may be something in what other Mailboxers have said about the South East taking on the burden of being English to a greater extent than other regions, and after all it's a personal choice. I cannot imagine not being interested in England's results in anything, whether it's football, rhythmic gymnastics or tiddly winks. I loathe cricket (it's not a sport - they don't even wear shorts!), but I still want England to win every game they play. But that's just me. My brother can't see what the fuss is about football (instead he has the complete Star Trek DVD collection) or following England in anything.
However, I have no time for those arguing that we shouldn't support England because they are rubbish. OK, I have no real argument against the 'rubbish' part of that, but surely a big bit of being a football fan is following your team regardless of their results and performances. Isn't it?
Mailbox regularly rails against 'plastic' fans, who weren't born within spitting distance of the team's ground. I don't particularly agree with this vilification over how you choose your football club (and I agree that those who get upset about it should 'get a life' - do you really have nothing better to do than compare postcodes of supporters? Just how does being born 200 miles away from your team make you care less about them than being born five miles away?), but the criticism is really that the supporters only chose their club because they were winning trophies. If there was a sudden upsurge in Crystal Palace supporters living in the North West, would anybody get upset about it? At least not until the extra shirt sale revenue persuaded a billionaire to invest in south London's 'Sleeping Giant' and they rocketed into the Top Four.
However, if the real criticism of the 'plastic' fan is that they only like a team when it is winning, unlike the rest of us who have supported them all our lives and suffered through the misery of poorer times, then why should England be exempt? After all, most of us that claim to be England fans were born within the local recruitment area. If you don't care about England just because they haven't been a great team of late, then you know nothing of being a football fan. I assume that you will also stop supporting your Top Four team if Man City edge them out to the UEFA Cup places in a couple of seasons' time.
Much as I hate to say anything favourable about the Scots, I seriously think we have to take a leaf out of their books - support your team through thick and thin, expect the worst and hope for the best. No team has any divine right to win trophies, or even to qualify for tournaments. Yes, criticise them, yes hope for better from players that should be able to perform at that level, but never, ever stop supporting.
Monkey Steve
...I'm sure you'll get a heap of emails pointing out the fact Fraser Carr is a mong. Aside from pointing out the bleeding obvious that he'd be singing his arse off if you English weren't chronically inept, International football is probably the last thing in the game that has any real meaning. Club football has gone beyond even being a business - with the billionares willing to shell out, the books no longer even have to balance. Club football is a farce.
Greg Pankhurst, Sydney, Australia
...In response to Fraser Carr...
Going to watch England at Wembley does not cost £70.
I have got Kazakhstan tickets for £30, paid £25 for Switzerland and I have paid no more than £40 for the other matches I have been to. Sure you can pay up to £50-£60 but you don't have to, much of the stadium is cheaper than most London premiership teams.
You'll be back watching England if they qualify for the world cup, you're a fair-weather fan.
Go support Scotland.
Chris Moisey
...I feel that Fraser Carr from this morning's mailbox was confusing international football as a concept with watching England.
It's widely accepted that watching England is not good value for money, nor is it a good way to spend (waste) two hours. The players appear disinterested and the quality of football is devastatingly underwhelming. This, of course, is all trite, but I do feel compelled to defend internatonal football as a concept.
Fraser Carr said that, 'If you want to be patriotic support the Olympics or watch cricket.' Why? Why can't the international football team generate the same patriotic fervour and pride generated by the Olympics? I realise that international football, as with all football, is victim to overexposure but this is surely a flaw of the media, not the concept.
Club football is only 'more interesting' because there is more of it - there are no, pre-season friendlies aside, meaningless games. If international football was expanded to such a league format then I would argue that it would supercede the club game. As Fraser himself admits, the tournaments are, generally, a good thing. Certainly, I cannot remember the last time I got as much enjoyment from watching football as I did during Euro 2008.
In theory, international football negates petty club rivalries and isn't subject to the same sought of irritating backroom wrangling that the club game is subject to. I realise that England are 100% gash at the moment, both in terms of administration and the football itself, but I live in hope of a new dawn. Meanwhile, I take solace in teams lke Croatia, who aren't 'lucky' enough to have a top, top quality league but who consistently come together to produce some scintillating football stemming from a disarmingly charming strong team ethic.
Nick Middleton, Plymouth
...I am not sure why I am wasting time responding to your asinine email, but here goes:
After about four years of mediocrity (and even that is flattering) in England internationals many fans are turning away from England. The prices are too expensive, the traffic is a nightmare and the football is crap.
Clearly sir, you a prat. If you assess football in terms of ticket price, the traffic around the ground and the quality of football I can only assume you have a corporate box at either Old Trafford or the Emirates, commute in by helicopter and somehow have the luck to only ever turn up to watch games where both Man Utd or Arsenal are in particular free-flowing form.
As for the 'four years of mediocrity' jibe, well again I must conclude you wither support one of the Big Four. I have been a Villa fan all my life and there have been times I have craved mediocrity. In fact mediocrity was the aim, the objective and the fans would have crawled over broken glass from New Street to the Holte End to get it. Apart from the fans of a few teams, all of us football fans around England have all endured years of winning practically nothing, it's something you get used to, but never a reason to loose heart or stop supporting a team.
International tournaments are showcases for talent, the semi-finals and finals of the major tournaments very rarely fail to put on a consummate show of football that truly epitomises the skills and tactics that each footballing nation brings to world football. While I would agree that many international qualifiers are quite dull, I am willing to bet you do not grumble to much when whichever team you support grinds out a boring 1-0 victory.
For all our sakes please emmigrate, so you can sit and watch English league football and we will not have to put up with you.
Carl Phillips
We're Excited Actually
Am I the only one actually excited about tonight's match?
To be fair it is probably the lure of having a pass to go to the pub midweek more than the football that is exciting but at least I'm excited about something (vaguely) to do with England.
Craig Foster
...I love it. My first live games as a kid was Dad taking me to Wembley to see England.
I love the build-up to an England game, with all the discussion on tactics and who'll play and how they'll play. It's a side of the game I find interesting at club level, but you get more focus on it and more people have an opinion so you can talk about it with more people in the office.
4-4-2 or 4-3-3? What are the pros and cons. Two holding midfielders in the middle, Wallcott and Downing out wide, like old fashioned wingers. Heskey and Rooney up front (why can't Rooney play in 4-4-2?).
While I like the idea of Cole and Rooney supporting Bruno (do people still call him that, or was it just Leicester?) 3 men in the midfield may be too weak against a midfield that will have Kovac holding and Modric bossing the middle, maybe with AN Other as well! So Rooney's more likely to keep dropping deep, here.
But I can't wait to see the line-up. Can't wait to start watching the game and see how the standard 4-4-2 the players were written in was wrong (at least with no MOTD highlights they can't embarrass themselves by getting this wrong after they've seen the game!). And Capello always chucks in at least one player or position no one seemed to think of.
And, for the record, I think we CAN will. I think, maybe we actually will.
But please, please, PLEASE don't get carried away if we do. It won't be swashbuckling like ManU, or stylish like Arsenal, it'll be more like Bolton (there's that 4-3-3 again).
Let's start there, with winning. I don't care how, let's just get to South Africa. We can worry about playing nice stuff later...
Daniel Rickard
England: Brilliant In 2004
ESPN Classic. Anyone else love this channel?
There I was, minding my own business on Tuesday night, enjoying a couple of Stellas, when I stumbled across it showing highlights from England's fantastic 4-2 win over Croatia at Euro 2004. Now I'm a Northern Ireland fan, so would like to think I'm impartial - but just how can the England national team seem to have fallen so much in 4 years when the majority remains the same team?
The line up that night was: James, G Neville, A Cole, Terry, Campbell, Gerrard, Beckham, Lampard, Scholes, Rooney and Owen.
There may never have been a stronger England team on paper. And they played like it! Cutting through a highly-talented Croat team at will - Gerrard actually seemed to enjoy playing on the left, working brilliantly in tandem with Cole (before he'd even become Cashley!), Ferdinand missing due to his drugs ban but Terry deputising brilliantly. Beckham and Neville working the right flank as if telepathic. Lampard (before he was fat) scoring for fun too. And then we come to the two key players - Scholes and Rooney.
Surely the retirement of Scholes can be directly linked to England's decline since this tournament finished - lacklustre in 2006 and not even there in 2008. With Scholes in the side England banged in 10 goals in 4 games in Euro 2004 - now they can't even manage one against Andorra in 45 mins.
And Rooney - he was on fire scoring all types of goals, one-on-ones, 25 yarders etc. Only his injury in the quarters against Portugal cost England the tournament - nothing else. He seems a pale reflection these days.
What's my point? I think Capello should attempt to convert Rooney into a midfielder in the Scholes mould - let's face it, he spends half his time charging around his own half chasing balls anyway so might be of better use in this position. And I believe he has the natural talent and vision to pull it off. Think about it - no more Gerrard/Lampard debates for one! And I truly believe Rooney will spend the second half of his career in a position like this - once the legs start to go a bit.
Anyway just a thought - but loving the ESPN Classic.
Chris, Belfast boy in Edinburgh
Formations: Gash
Wayne (Rooney?) wrote into this morning's mailbox to issue a pretty firm rebuttal of Sarah Winterburn's suggestion that he cannot play in a 4-4-2 formation, but I think she might have a point, about the formation at least. For what it's worth, Wayne Rooney is the most complete footballer this country has produced in the last 15 years, maybe more. But crucially, he is also a walking illustration of how antiquated all this talk of formations is.
It is foolishness to think that Fabio Capello will stand up in front of the England team tonight and say, "Tonight gentlemen, we will play 4-3-3. Grazi." Players don't play in formations, and managers don't manage a team that way. Granted, players have positions and areas of responsibility on the pitch, especially in defence. But up front, the better teams know that allowing players to be creative and flexible works best: the more liquidity you have in your attack, the more opportunity you give yourself to find weaknesses and space in opposing defences and exploit them.
Granted, there are teams (such as Liverpool) that will appear to stick rigidly to their formations. They are boring (another debate, perhaps...), but crucially, they will not score many, if any, against the better teams in their competition. I invite people to write in and prove me wrong here. And it's here where we pick up the England problem.
Playing in midfield in club football, the players get used to knowing your defensive duties, when to track back and when to mark. They simply cannot learn this by experience at international level; through a mixture of fear at making a mistake and not tracking back, to lack of understanding of each other's games, and also nervousness that almost every game means something.
Rooney and Joe Cole's dynamism is exactly what we need to create more chances at international level. But we also need to take the chains off all our front six, give them more freedom to find gaps and space, while at the same time sort out a proper system for covering counter-attacks that we seem to be vulnerable to.
Andy Suggitt
Rooney: The New Smudger?
With all the talk about Rooney not scoring enough goals and the suggestions that we play him in midfield does that mean were looking at the new Alan Smith??
Steve (First-time writer, long-time reader)
There Are Other Television Providers Available
Are F365 afraid or unable to say anything pro-Setanta or pro-Murdoch rivals.
I e-mailed last week recommending that people swith to Virgin Media. That way you pay for Sky Sports (which you pay Sky for anyway) and get Setanta for free.
But you didn't post it, notwithstanding that the theme of the Mailbox that day was how fans are being made to pay three times for footy on telly, i.e. BBC licence fee, Sky subscription and Setanta.
Not if you're a Virgin Media customer you're not.
Dessie, Belfast - confident in the knowledge this won't be posted.
Don't Believe All You Hear
I think Nick Miller's got to be a bit careful in assuming that what the media says fans want is actually what the fans want. There's a long tradition of finding one or two muppets outside the stadium who'll say that Shearer, or Di Canio, or whoever should get the job and then extrapolating that as if it reflects the will of the fans as a whole. He seems to acknowledge this but then ignores it, on pretty flimsy grounds, and concludes that it is what they all want really. Presumably because his article would have been entirely pointless if he hadn't.
Dalglish isn't the only example of the hero appointment working either. Although it all went aggresively tits up in record time this time round (and that had nothing to do with results on the pitch), Keegan's first stint as manager of Newcastle took the club from the brink of extinction to an agonising second-place finish in the Premier League. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Celtic fans don't think that appointing Jock Stein was a hopeless, heart-driven, mistake either.
A knee-jerk reaction against appointing someone who's already a hero at the club is just as stupid as the blind assumption that they'll descend from the MoTD sofa to sprinkle fairy dust over the players and solve everything. Provided that their suitability for the job is judged in the same way as any other prospective appointee then I really can't see the problem.
Ben Smith
Anyone Else Want To Rule Themselves Out?
Re: Derek, Singapore from Wednesday morning's mailbox - you'll notice a fair few of these managers who've ruled themselves out of taking over at Newcastle have current jobs with clubs/nations who have the audacity not to be Newcastle. These clubs also have fans who, for whatever reason, have chosen not to support Newcastle. Whether you like it or not, said fans have human rights, such as knowing whether their staff will remain in place or whether they fancy clearing up someone else's massive, ugly mess instead. Since Mr. Poyet was made a heavy favorite to take over at the long running but still hillarious joke that it NUFC, quite logically due to his friendship with Mr. Wise, he has every right to rule himself out and re-emphasise his commitment to stop Spurs becoming a bigger joke than you. As a Spurs fan, this was information I was happy to hear, even if it was apparently beyond his rights of free speech.
Will Donovan, Norwich, happily ruling himself out of the Newcastle job
...After spending much of the morning hiding under the kitchen table whilst I await this black hole thingamajig to eat me up, I can only thank Derek from Singapore for giving me something to smile about before my inevitable demise.
His rant reminded me of my school days, when I'd spend about three weeks building the confidence to ask the pretty blonde in class 4L on a date, only for her to flatly turn me down and me to respond with "Yeah? Well I never really liked you anyway!".
Derek, if someone has a microphone stuck under their nose and is asked if they fancy managing the Loony Toons, they are only stating the facts when they say 'no'. In fact, perhaps you should be thankful that they respond with a well-mannered reply, rather than what they really think - 'f**k that for a game of soldiers!'.
Boris (Am I still here?) Chapman
...Derek (Go Nacho! Go Xisco!), Singapore I cannot begin to understand what the hell you are going on about!? You're getting annoyed about people 'ruling themselves' out? Do you even follow football? Gus Poyet ruled himself out because it was the best way to end all the speculation about him. He was after all the bookies' favourite. I cannot understand how Newcastle fans can get so high and mighty about all this stuff. You'd be lucky for anyone to touch your club with a 50ft barge pole. The place is a mess! So really Gus Poyet has every right to be ruling himself out, as he was seen as the blatant favourite. Pull your head out of your own arse and realise that you can't expect any established good manager to come in and help you out.
At this rate you'd have been lucky to get Gus Poyet!
Harry, High Wycombe
Spending Billions On Cloned Players
All this talk of City being bought out by the rich men from Abu Dhabi got me thinking, why do they bother to spend millions, possibly billions on buying a club, then buying players, paying their salaries and suffering their tantrums when they're homesick or don't like the weather? Let's face it I can't see Robinho fancying a match away at Hull in the middle of winter, in fact I can't see him fancying a match at Eastlands in October to be honest. Do you think he's realised how much it rains up here?
But that's not my point. What I'm wondering is why don't these multi-billionaires buy some tiny club for pennies then breed their own super freaks for players? Would really be that more expensive? I'm no genetics expert but I'm fairly sure that for a billion pounds you could do it. Just imagine you could create your own miniature version of Usain Bolt to play on the right wing, give him the ball control of Ronaldo and a cannon for a left foot and he'd be skinning Patrice Evra all day long! How about a defensive midfielder that's 8 feet tall, 5 foot wide but has the footwork of a ballerina? Someone so large that instead of trying to tackle Wayne Rooney he could just sit on him instead (and that's no mean feat!). You could even engineer a human-come-octopus to play in goal, I'm no aware of any rules governing how many arms a player can have? Perhaps even a lion-come-human at centre back who could eat any player who dares get within 50 yards of the goal. Teams complain about how hard it is to defend against United and Arsenal, I say the threat of being someone's half-time snack would make some of them think twice. Mind you I'd still expect Chelsea to get through, he'd still be trying to munch his way through Frank Lampard long after the final whistle and the stadium has emptied!
You could create them so that they never get tired, always follow orders and are able to go three matches without demanding a pay rise; in fact you could make them so you wouldn't have to pay them at all. They'd play the same whether in the middle of the Sahara Desert or at the South Pole.
I don't know about you but I'd pay to watch that every Saturday afternoon.
Steve O, Manchester (I support Liverpool, how did I end up here?)
