Post/pre season

As the dust settles on another football European Championship and fans refocus on their parochial interests via their clubs, whilst Wimbledon muscled in to the scene with genuine chances of British glory, it may seem apt to reflect.  AVB moves into north London, RVP looks like he is on the way out and Manchester United attempt to float on the New York stock Exchange, these are all shadow moves ahead of the curtain raiser.  The Championship in Poland and Ukraine is still abroad in the minds of those with an interest in the game.

Spain are hailed as the greatest team that ever there was and commentators fall over themselves in saying how they would have pushed the Brazil of 1970 very close, far harder than the Italian team in the final then or the one in 2012.  They had to wait a long time for the goods to come, a solitary Euro win in 1964 prior to their current supremacy.  England may look for hope in this, just as in the Hoddle and Keegan eras they hoped the wearing of a strip which they had worn in beating vaunted opponents before would have a mystical effect in helping to overcome them again (in the case of both Germany and Argentina, it motivated them to overcome the stain).  It is not that there are too many foreigners in the Premier League, it is the lie that the Premier League puts out that an influx of foreign talent will raise the game of the English players.  The foreign players come from football cultures that prize possession and passing.  By the time most English players graduate to the senior game, this has been knocked out of them by Gary Megson-style parents and coaches who favour overt physicality and hard tackling, too slow-witted that you don’t need to knock over your opponent or tackle him if you don’t lose the ball in the first place.  A first step has been taken, in the teeth of fierce opposition, where young boys are now in seven-a-side teams instead of full eleven-a-sides so they have time to feel comfortable with the ball and have the space to move it around.  This is along similar lines of successful football academies.  A shift away from going to war to creating art.  Unfortunately, it won’t blossom for another decade, but from small acorns...

Raising the standard of punditry is another matter altogether.  I like Alan Shearer and find him very personable.  He has got better over the years in his analysis (though one wonders how many ghost writers are involved).  Yet, after he was given mild praise for taking an opposing view to others on the panel at the World Cup final in 2010, he seems to have got it into his mind to make bold, sweeping statements as his raison d’etre.  Gary Lineker even brought it up when Shearer said Mario Balotelli had won nothing (Balotelli could have replied in kind).  At the end of the final here, as the referees went up to collect their awards, Shearer was gushing as he said that the standard of refereeing was amazing and that there had been no complaint after any game.  Really?  So the Greeks had no grievances after their matches against Poland and Russia?  Overlook these maybe, but the dispute in the England-Ukraine game over the goal that was not given is one of the defining moments in the Championship.

It is this game which has shot Michel Platini’s goose with the extra officials.  Pierluigi Collina defended the system whilst punishing the officials, stripping them of any further responsibility.  A 95% success rate is fine but why not have goal line technology which has a 99.9% success rate.  The move to the goal was offside anyway and goal line technology would not have affected that.  But the International Football Association Board’s adoption of it is another positive outcome of this Championship.