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#5875298 · 14 Jun 2007, 19:58 · · პროფილი · პირადი მიმოწერა · ჩატი
ნაწყვეტები ბრაიან გლენვილის წიგნიდან "ინგლისის მწვრთნელები - ყველაზე რთული სამუშაო ფეხბურთში":
'You did it, Alf!'
The final, then, would be between West Germany and England. The Germans had never yet beaten an England team and they had been trying one way or another since 1901, when their rudimentary national team was beaten 12-0 by an all-England amateur side at Tottenham and 10-0 by the professionals in Manchester. Under Helmut Schoen, it was a more fluent, technical side than those which had played under Sepp Herberger. Schoen, who had been his assistant manager, was at last able to express his own ideas through the team, though to those who somewhat caustically implied that he was still under Herberger's spell, he would politely reply that, of course, they were sometimes in contact.
Schoen, however, was prepared to go so far; and no further. That is to say, he resisted the ambitions of the young Franz Beckenbauer, a precocious strategist, who was already playing as an attacking libero, or sweeper, for his club Bayern Munich, thus initiating the polymath style which would come to be known as Total Football. Beckenbauer had conceived the idea, he said, when watching the big Italian international left back Giacinto Fachetti - who like most of his Italy team had such a disappointing World Cup - surging into attack from deep positions. If a full back could do it, reasoned Beckenbauer, then why not a liberor?
Ironically enough, Fabbri had omitted from his Italian squad the doyen of Italian sweepers, Armando Picchi, who interpreted the role purely in terms of defence, but practised it resiliently. So Picchi attended the World Cup only as a spectator which was how, to my astonishment, that I found myself one Sunday morning playing side by side with him - wearing his underpants! - in a pick-up game in Battersea Park. One in which, quite typically, he played with a commitment suggesting we were indeed involved in the World Cup itself.
As for England, the main question was whether Jimmy Greaves would play. Certainly he was quite fit again. And if he were to play, presumably he could scarcely hope to displace Geoff Hurst, whose contribution had been invaluable in the previous two games. Hurst or Hunt, then, one assumed; but for Ramsey, if not for the critics and supporters at large, Hunt was important.
Truth to tell, Hunt in the World Cup final was guilty of two howling mistakes, which could well have cost England the game. Three minutes from half time, with the score at 1-1, Ray Wilson, with a typically fast and incisive overlap, finished with a searching cross. Hurst leaped above the German defence, flicking the ball accurately to Hunt, on his left. But the best, or worst, that Hunt could do was to strike an inadequate shot with his weaker left foot, saved by the German keeper Hans Tilkowski, perhaps more by luck than judgement, when he threw up his arms in seeming hope.
On eighty-six minutes, with England 2-1 ahead and the Germans desperately in search of parity, Hunt blundered again. This time, he was favoured by a glorious defence-shredding pass by an inspired Alan Ball. He had both Hurst and Bobby Charlton to his right, with only the big German defender Willi Schulz in his way. All he had to do was to draw Schulz and give the ball right, to one or other of his team mates. Instead, his pass to Charlton was too soon and too square. Charlton sliced wildly at the ball in his evident surprise, and the vital chance had gone. The Germans thus went on to equalise.
Hard indeed to forget the Friday morning press conference at Roehampton before that final and Alf's strangulated confirmation that England would win. Jimmy Greaves had the weight of the world, let alone the World Cup, on his shoulders, wondering whether he'd be picked. Yet he was still able to say to me with a smile, 'We must have another game next season, Brian!' Meaning of all things a game in Essex between his Tennis All Stars of Abridge against my little Sunday side, Chelsea Casuals, games in which Jimmy played combatively in goal. But that weekend there would be no game for Jimmy, though the sad descent into alcoholism was apparently precipitated not by this massive disappointment, but by his dejection when, transferred from Spurs to West Ham, he found there a Ron Greenwood disillusioned with football and no longer the same, innovative figure. This grew all too clear when Greenwood was elevated to the England role.
It might well be said that Helmut Schoen gave the game away when he detailed Franz Beckenbauer to man-mark Bobby Charlton. In so doing, he may well have largely subdued Charlton, but only at the enormous cost of restricting Beckenbauer to such a negative role, when up till that point he had been the fluent, adventurous inspiration of the German midfield. It was widely believed that the two players cancelled each other out, but if they did, it was at the expense of West Germany's expense, rather than England's.
It was a tribute to England's morale that they should fight back after such a potentially traumatising opening goal. After thirteen minutes the usually so reliable Ray Wilson headed Siggi Held's left-wing cross aberrantly straight to the feet of Helmut Haller, and into the net it went.
Another of those West Ham combinations got England back into the game; a quickly taken, perfectly judged free kick by Bobby Moore from the left; a perfectly judged run and header by Geoff Hurst. Tilkowski and his team mates berated one another.
Ramsey's instructions to Ball had been to draw the German left back Karl-Heinz Schnellinger constantly into the middle, which for some time he did, with success; only in the latter stages of the game to overwhelm 'Schnelli', out on the right flank, with all the pace and elusiveness of the true winger.
Playing their own version of catenaccio which had availed the Italians so little, with Willi Schulz as the uncompromising sweeper, and Wolfgang Weber, due to score that breathless equaliser, at centre back, the Germans were by no means committed merely to defence. They were flexible and menacing, with Haller supporting the drive of Held on the left, and the irrepressible Uwe Seeler drifting to the right. Gordon Banks had to make a double save from Wolfgang Overath, the chief playmaker, and the big left winger, Lothar Emmerich.
The second half was largely indifferent, though the gap on England's left flank, save when Wilson advanced to fill it, was notable. After seventy-eight minutes, however, England went ahead with a somewhat fortuitous goal, Peters, notionally committed to that wing, popped up in the box to score after Weber had blocked Hurst's shot. That seemed to be that; but controversially it wasn't.
With barely a minute left came West Germany's disputable equaliser. Disputable, because the free kick which produced it was probably a foul by Held, backing in on Jack Charlton, rather than against him. Emmerich, hesitant till then, now had the chance to strike the crucial free kick from the left of the box, into the goalmouth. There, it hit Schnellinger in the back, was driven across goal again by Held, and struck home on the far post by Weber.
As his weary, dejected players sprawled on the turf, awaiting extra time, Ramsey strode magisterially on to the field to tell them they had won the World Cup once; now they must win it again. With a derisive gesture at the equally recumbent Germans, he declared, 'Look at them! They're finished.'
It would be the apotheosis now of Alan Ball. Well might Ramsey tell him afterwards that he would never play a better game for England. Within ninety seconds, Ball was racing down the wing, giving the lie to any notion of wingless wonders, ending with a shot which Tilkowski, seemingly troubled throughout by the shoulder he had hurt playing in the semi-final versus the Soviet Union, turned over the bar. Shoulder or no shoulder, Tilkowski proceeded next to turn a searing drive by Bobby Charlton for a corner.
A hundred minutes had been played when a searching pass to the right by Stiles reached Ball. 'Oh, no!' Ball told himself. 'I can't get that one! I'm finished.' He had, he later declared, 'already died twice'. Yet somehow he found the strength, pace and energy to get the ball indeed, and leave Schnellinger panting in the rear. Geoff Hurst met his cross on the near post with a searinging right-footed shot. After which - eternal controversy.
That the shot beat Tilkowski all ends up was palpable. That it struck the underside of the bar was indisputable. Whether or not it then crossed the goal line has been disputed to this day. Roger Hunt, turning away in triumph without bothering to make sure of the goal, seemed quite convinced. Herr Gottfreid Dienst, the Swiss referee, wasn't sure. He turned to his Azerbaijan linesman Tofik Bakhramov, to his right, a man with the flowing grey hair of a concert violinist; Bakhramov pointed his flag emphatically towards the centre. England 3 West Germany 2.
With the Germans desperately in quest of an equaliser, leaving gaps galore, a West Ham partnership turned the trick again. Moore's long ball out of defence, capping his immaculate display, and there was Hurst, blowing out his cheeks, to crash the ball left footed past Tilkowski. Was he trying to score, or simply blasting the ball away, willy nilly, as the seconds ebbed? No matter. It was a spectacular goal, England's fourth, and the first hat trick ever recorded in a World Cup final.
So Ramsey had won the World Cup, as he said he would, England's best coming last, or in the last two games. Had he and they been lucky? Lucky to play every game at Wembley? Perhaps, but there was nothing illicit about it. And unlucky surely to concede that late equaliser, in such dubious and potentially disheartening circumstances. That the team was able to pick itself up, dust itself off and start all over again was surely a tribute to his influence and inspiration.
* * *
გაგრძელება:
How Sir Bobby's luck finally ran out
In the second part of an exclusive serialisation of Brian Glanville's new book, England Managers, The Toughest Job in Football, the doyen of football writers gives his verdict on Bobby Robson and the 1990 World Cup campaign
England would be based in Cagliari, capital of Sardinia, where it was hoped the hooligans could be contained. Alas, there would be at least one bloody pre-match confrontation in which the English fans, by and large, were more sinned against than sinning.
Gazza would go although, given his fragile character, it was distressing to see how insensitively Bobby Robson treated him. ‘Daft as a brush,’ Robson called him, but, with the definitive exclusion of Glenn Hoddle, he was plainly England’s one real hope of invention and surprise in midfield, with his supreme technique, his powerful right foot, his instant ability to sum up situations. Yet Robson stuck him on the left wing in a B-team international in Brighton and, shortly before the squad for Italy was announced, put him under ferocious pressure. Picking him for a friendly against the Czechs at Wembley, Robson insensitively announced that this was Paul Gascoigne’s last chance.
In the tunnel before the start, Gascoigne was kicking a ball against the wall in his anxiety, but he went out, played superbly, had a hand in three goals and got one himself, with a glorious solo.
Holland, Egypt and the Republic of Ireland, still led by Jackie Charlton, would be England’s group opponents in Cagliari. The opening match against the Irish was of a blinding sterility, which led one Italian paper to head its match report, ‘No Football Please, We’re British’. In a harsh wind, even Gascoigne found life difficult. Lineker scored a characteristically opportunist goal in eight minutes, taking the ball past the Irish keeper Packy Bonner with his chest, running on to score. Steve McMahon, on as a substitute, ineptly gave the ball away to Kevin Sheedy, who shot the left-footed equaliser.
Holland came next but this was a diminished Dutch team, beset by quarrels within the camp. Previously, in press conferences, Bobby Robson had insisted that the sweeper defence was utterly foreign to English footballers, and a four-in-line defence would be maintained. England’s senior professionals now persuaded him otherwise, though in the event their caution proved excessive. Mark Wright, rehabilitated after his blunders against the Yugoslavs in 1986, filled the role capably but Terry Butcher found himself virtually playing at right back. The dynamic pace of Des Walker closed any gaps, though Bobby Robson had constantly criticised him for being reluctant to cross the halfway line. Further invaluable pace was given to the defence by little Paul Parker. In Katowice, Jacek Ziober and Roman Kosecki, the long-haired little Polish wingers, had overrun the English backs.
It was yet another goalless draw but England deserved to win, making far the greater number of chances, with Gary Lineker, paired up front with John Barnes hitting the keeper’s body and missing a clear opportunity later. Gascoigne now was emphatically up and running. This was a revitalised England.
Press relations meanwhile were at rock bottom, the consequence of those tabloid ‘revelations’ about the two Robsons. Naïvely, Bobby gave free run of the England camp to a novelist called Pete Davies who rewarded him in his subsequent book with a string of indiscretions; many, such as Gascoigne’s telephone rant at his girlfriend, of the kind which any professional sports journalist would have excluded. The news media’s lack of reticence, however, appeared to have no obvious effect on the team’s performance.
Against Egypt, England reverted to a four-in-line defence. Ultra cautious, the Egyptians hardly deserved the praise afforded them by Bobby Robson after the game. Mark Wright headed the only goal from a searching free kick by Gascoigne and England were through to the next round.
Their opponents would be Belgium in Bologna, where, after 119 minutes England prevailed with a goal superbly and gymnastically struck by substitute David Platt, a late-developing attacker, discarded by Manchester United, groomed by Crewe Alexandra, burnished by Aston Villa. It was Gazza’s free kick – again – from the left which enabled Platt to swivel and volley his goal. Once again, England played with a sweeper, which seemed somewhat redundant, since the Belgians used only one striker. Belgium twice hit the post. Barnes, after a splendid move, had a goal contentiously ruled out for a dubious offside.
Next, to Naples, where the opposition was the tournament’s surprise package,Cameroon, none more so than their astonishing centre forward Roger Milla, aged (at least) thirty-eight, who was wont to come on and score as a second-half substitute. Cameroon had shocked Argentina by beating the holders in the curtain-raising game.
They very nearly beat England, too. ‘A flat back four saved us,’ said Bobby Robson, the following day. The point being that England had again started with a sweeper, in the shape of Wright. In the event, the three English centre backs served only to confuse one another. Though the abrasive Cameroon team had no fewer than four players suspended, they were vigorously effective, all the more so when the veteran Milla made his usual entry at half time. Without Bryan Robson, injured yet again and back in Blighty, and with David Platt starting for the first time, England took the lead when Platt headed in a left-flank cross from an adventurous Stuart Pearce. But yet again, only the defiance of Peter Shilton kept England’s goal intact.
An erratic Mexican referee, Codesal, gave anomalous decisions in the second half, above all on penalties. Platt should have had one when brought down by the keeper, Thomas N’Kono, Cameroon got one when Gascoigne, fitfully inspired, felled Milla; Emmanuel Kunde scored. Eugene Ekeke, served by Milla, made it 2–1, whereupon Bobby Robson jettisoned the sweeper system which was never natural to him, taking off Butcher and finally putting on Trevor Steven. It was hard to know why Steven, who would now excel, had been out in the cold so long, but now he transformed the right flank, while Paul Parker subdued Milla. Eight minutes before time, Gary Lineker was brought down and equalised from the spot. Mark Wright, colliding with Milla, poured blood from a cut above his right eye and had to move out of central defence; it meant England played extra time with ten fit men. On 105 minutes, however, they won the game when an inspired pass by Gascoigne put Lineker through. N’Kono brought him down, but this time he would not escape. Another penalty, and Lineker converted it. So England were in the semi-final. ‘We pulled it out of the fire,’ exulted Bobby Robson. ‘I don’t know how, sometimes. We were depleted. Wright, Walker [both had injuries]. But the two midfield players [Gascoigne and Platt] worked marvellously hard, they ran for miles ? Parker and Trevor Steven did very, very well. Parker jumped like a salmon, tackled like a ferret. We were told to go home after the first match. Well, I believe the country back home is dancing in the streets, now ? because we’re in the top four in the world in 1990 ? and I’m proud of that, because I stand up for our football.’
Now he said he would go to bed for two days. ‘Then come and ask. We’re going to enjoy it. We’ll worry about Germany in good time. They’re very good, we know what confronts us and they know what confronts them.’
Sad to reflect that what awaited England was the meaningless anticlimax of a third place match in Bari, which they’d lose to Italy. ‘We’ve got here,’ reflected Bobby Robson later, before the semi-final. ‘I don’t know how.’
Robson’s luck? It certainly ran out in Turin against Germany, when England succumbed on penalties after extra time. And there was arguably ill luck when the Germans led, on the hour – a shot by the German full back Andy Brehme hit Parker, curling into the air, over Shilton’s head and into the net.
England, who again used Terry Butcher as sweeper but again replaced him in the second half with Trevor Steven, equalised ten minutes from time, when Parker crossed from the right; Jurgen Kohler and Klaus Augenthaler, central defenders, clumsily confused one another, allowing the unmarked Lineker to score. And, in an iconic moment much analysed in the years since, Gascoigne was cautioned and promptly wept when he realised it would mean suspension from the next match – possibly the final. Tears that touched so many. The daft brush had become the sad clown.
Overall, the German team looked tired, but it held out into extra time, during which each team hit the post: Chris Waddle for England, Guido Buchwald for Germany, while Shilton made glorious saves from Lothar Matthaus and Jurgen Klinsmann. But when it came to penalties, Pearce shot into the keeper Illgner’s flying body, Waddle shot over the bar, and England were out.
In a moment of utter fatuity Peter Swales, Manchester City’s chairman, and leading member of the Senior International Committee, announced that he would rather England lost the World Cup than Bobby Robson remain. Doubly fatuous, in that Robson had already announced before the tournament that he would not be continuing. So ended a stewardship hardly remarkable for its consistency, yet successful enough in two World Cups.
* * *
გაგრძელება:
Why Hoddle was the best since Sir Alf
In the third part of an exclusive serialisation of Brian Glanville's new book, England Managers, The Toughest Job in Football, the doyen of football writers gives his verdict on Glenn Hoddle and a valiant exit from the 1998 World Cup
England began their qualifying group with a comfortable enough 2–0 win over a moderate Tunisian side. Next in Toulouse came Romania. Hoddle, almost perversely, preferred initially the one-paced Teddy Sheringham to the electric young Michael Owen, and stuttered accordingly. Against Tunisia in Marseille, Owen had gone on for Sheringham only in the last half-dozen minutes. Now in Toulouse he had to wait 73 minutes before he replaced an ineffectual Sheringham, with England a goal down. Owen instantly transformed the England attack, used his pace to score a spectacular equalising goal, only for a bizarrely inept piece of defending by Graeme Le Saux to let in his Chelsea colleague, Dan Petrescu, to score the winner for Romania.
Owen duly started the third qualifying game in Lens against Colombia, won 2–0 with goals from Darren Anderton and David Beckham. But the defeat by Romania condemned England to second place, and a second-round confrontation with Argentina.
Who knows how that game might have ended had it not been for a moment of disastrous petulance by David Beckham. In Saint Etienne, the battle was titanic, the resistance of an England team reduced after 47 minutes to ten men by Beckham’s expulsion and obliged to play on through half-an-hour’s extra time, was phenomenal. Brought down by the wily Diego Simeone, Beckham, lying on the ground, swung out a foot at him and was promptly expelled by the Danish referee, Kim Milton Nielsen.
The match could scarcely have had a more explosive beginning, each side scoring from a somewhat contentious penalty in the first ten minutes. When Simeone burst through the English defence, David Seaman rushed out and brought him down. There were two questions: first was it necessary to do so, secondly, was the fall excessively dramatic? In any event, Batistuta was secure with his spot kick. Much the same could be asked of Owen’s tumble in the box when he sprawled at full pelt over a challenge by the opposing centre back, Roberto Ayala. Shearer scored the penalty. Six minutes more and with superb acceleration, Owen went past both Ayala and another defender, to give England the lead.
Alas, at a traditionally crucial moment just before half time, England conceded the equaliser. Under orders from manager Daniel Passarella, once the World Cup winning captain, Argentina executed a cleverly conceived free kick, which found England’s defence lacking in awareness. The strategy was consummated when Juan Sebastian Veron found Javier Zanetti who scored.
But then, to the fury of Hoddle, who had constantly warned Beckham to curb his impetuosity, the Manchester United forward was sent off, and it became for England an inevitable war of attrition. Their defence, with Tony Adams and Sol Campbell defiant in the middle, held the Argentines at bay. Campbell even had the ball in the net, but the goal was disallowed since Shearer’s elbow had previously connected with the face of Carlos Roa, Argentina’s keeper. Against that, Gabriel Batistuta, Argentina’s prolific centre forward, for once eluded Adams, but only to head wide.
So the game ground on into extra time, with no foreshortening Golden Goal, an experiment then in force, to abbreviate it. Penalties, that superfluous abomination, would thus decide. Sergio Berti converted the first for Argentina; Alan Shearer replied. Seaman then saved from the striker Hernan Crespo, but Roa did the same from Paul Ince. Veron now scored, as did Paul Merson, on as a substitute. Ayala made it 4–3, and then the lot fell on David Batty, who had never taken a spot kick before. Roa saved, England were out; with honour.
Hoddle published his notorious diary, but nemesis awaited him. In an interview with the football correspondent of The Times, he was unwise enough to declare his belief, well enough known in Buddhist lore, that disabled people were being punished for their sins in a previous life. He had apparently said as much before, without consequences, in a radio interview, but now there was outrage. Even the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gratuitously agreed with the hosts of a morning television show that Hoddle deserved to be dismissed. Which he was. Naive as it may well have been, it hardly seemed a hanging offence. It was tempting to see it as what Freudians would call a displacement; he was actually, if belatedly, being punished for the indiscretions of his deplorable [World Cup] diary.
It still seemed harsh, not least because whatever the indiscretions of the diary, the charges of alleged arrogance, the strange ambivalence towards the emergent Owen, Hoddle’s record was surely the best since that of Ramsey, who, after all, had never had to qualify for the World Cup. And in the last analysis, England’s gallant performance against the odds could be seen as a moral victory.
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