WORLD CUP OVER, NEW SEASON AWAITS
Paul Tomkins 05 July 2006
It's ironic that two players so used to winning penalty shoot-outs should fall foul of the national team's fear of the 12-yard mark.
And so with it came the end of the Eriksson era: one of the steadiest and most consistent periods in the history of the national team, but, 2001 aside, also one of the least inspiring.
As with Gérard Houllier at Liverpool that same year, Eriksson rode a wave of success built upon Michael Owen, Emile Heskey and Steven Gerrard (with the former deservedly becoming European Footballer of the Year), but could not ultimately lift his team's level that extra notch when it mattered most.
It's a shame for England's sake that the experiment with a foreign coach landed the FA with a merely very good manager, rather than a Wenger, Benítez or Mourinho, who are three of the current great ones. Liverpool could easily have gone back to tradition when Houllier's time came to an end, in the way England clamoured for a home-born boss, but instead bravely made the inspired appointment of Rafa Benítez.
It's hard to see any of the aforementioned trio failing to act at half-time, or within five or ten minutes of the restart, when their tactics were clearly not working.
England weren't losing, or being outplayed, but they were also going nowhere. While I have no problem with Eriksson starting with a formation that could (and indeed should) have worked given the ability of those playing, there is little excuse for not rectifying the problem when it was staring him in the face.
It was like he was waiting for something to happen, to take a decision out of his own hands. And it did. With the grossly ineffectual Beckham injured, a proper winger was on. So that was better, and gave the full width the formation required (on the right, at least).
But that wasn't enough. Rooney was getting massively frustrated up front, and a hot head in hot heat was given enough rope from Sven to hang himself. Or rather, he handed the player the match to light his own short fuse. (You can add your own 'Kaboom!' sound effect.)
There is no doubt that 4-5-1 can be a perfectly attacking formation. But in this instance it wasn't panning out that way. There were fleeting moments when it worked to perfection, but they were too few and far between; the midfield was too deep, with Gerrard and Lampard dropping back to collect possession. The idea that Peter Crouch 'caused' the long-balls was debunked by the defence and deep-lying midfielders hitting long to Rooney.
Michael Carrick, who'd passed well in the previous game when mirroring the role and style of Xabi Alonso, was replaced by the more defensive Owen Hargreaves. That said, the Bayern Munich man was superb at both ends of the pitch and justified his selection from his perspective. Yet again it proves how severely maligned players often just need the right environment to prosper. But the team was not balanced.
The midfield were not getting forward, and the wrong player was chosen as the lone striker.
It takes a specific skill to play the lone striking role, much like it takes unique skills to be the holding midfielder. Michael Owen was totally ineffectual as a lone striker in Northern Ireland last season. Crouch, while a less-vaunted individual than Owen and Rooney, can play the role.
Crouch is more suited to the lone-striker role than Rooney, who we all know prefers to drop deep. But unlike Rooney, Crouch is not seen as the national talisman. Crouch deserved his place on his performances, although with Rooney looking surprisingly fit 4-4-2 could also have been deployed. If not at the start, then certainly from half-time.
England did better when Crouch came on to play as the lone striker, although at that stage the adversity of going a man down had finally lifted the team out of its torpor. But it's also interesting that even with one less attacking midfielder, with Crouch having replaced Joe Cole, England had more joy with the formation. Crouch was superb in his attempts to hold the ball up when surrounded by four defenders.
But whichever formation Sven went with he was always asking at least one of his best players to go against their natural game. At first it was Gerrard, and then later it was Rooney.
Sven never dealt with the key conundrum: Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney all like to occupy the central area between an opposition's defence and midfield.
The problem was compounded by Joe Cole preferring to cut infield every time he received possession, to run into the same space. I couldn't help but wonder how Rafa would have changed things, had it been his team. He never seems afraid to make changes, no matter at what stage of the game.
Rafa is not opposed to wide players featuring on their 'opposite' flank, but he also likes people who go outside their man and give width. Wingers also regularly switch flanks in his side during a game, to cause new problems, something England never did.
Steven Gerrard flitted in and out of his Liverpool form, but never really seemed to be let off the leash. A role has to be found for him to give him that sense of freedom and authority. Even so, he was England's most consistent midfielder and the country's top scorer, despite spending a good deal of time in a more defensive role.
While Crouch proved he should have been there, Theo Walcott, whose time will come, seemed no more than the little boy taken along as the mascot.
And so it came to penalties once again. Lampard set the tone with his miss, and Gerrard and Carragher followed suit.
Unlike most Liverpool fans, Portuguese keeper Ricardo wouldn't have seen Carragher's speciality side-foot shoot-out penalty that sails into the right-hand corner of the goal. Unfortunately, the disallowed first attempt did exactly that, and with his intentions exposed Carra felt compelled to change his technique.
Understandable, but had he double-bluffed and gone the same way, it could have been a different story. Hindsight makes it all a lot easier.
So it was over, all Reds out.
With Harry Kewell's injury hopefully nothing serious, that leaves just Djibril Cissé as a casualty of the summer programme, and it seems he had become surplus to requirements anyway.
And with the distraction of the World Cup, it's now just two weeks until the pre-season friendlies commence. Hopefully Carra, Gerrard and Crouch will be celebrating significant club success this time next year.
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