By Myles Palmer
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England 1 Sweden 1
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I’ve had a somewhat grumpy day and I’ve gotta choose between writing this now or Sunday or Monday or never.
One of those days where you wonder how football fits into your life and how your life fits into football.
Sven surprised us by picking only six of the players we expected.
He started Southgate not Keown, Carragher not Chris Powell, Butt not Danny Murphy, Trevor Sinclair not Anderton, and Kevin Phillips not Owen.
So I didn’t like that.
It was : give everybody a game, keep everybody happy.
West Ham fans want Sinclair to play,Sunderland fans reckon Phillips deserves a chance, and Steve McClaren works with Southgate at Middlesbrough.
Sven was keeping everybody sweet. Pleasing the media, giving them something different to write about and talk about.
Sinclair was rubbish, Anderton superb.
Sinclair put one good cross on Phillips’s head after 11 minutes. After that he did zilch.Then he won a soft penalty after 26.
He misjudged Heskey’s pass into the box, got himself into a position where he could not reach the ball, checked, just caught his trailing foot on a defender’s knee, went down and got an undeserved penalty which Beckham converted.
I would not have Sinclair anywhere near my England squad. Not in 1000 years. He ain’t gonna improve.The time for him to start improving was 1996.
I was not surprised when Sinclair’s sloppy,dim-witted challenge on Andersson gave away the free-kick from which the Swedes equalised.
Scholes can be awful in his own half, especially with an opponent close to him. Atrocious.
Scholes is a reflex player, a one-two player, a guy who can do several important things brilliantly.
Most notably :shooting, volleying, heading and getting into positions from which goals can be scored.
He is not a strategic passer, not a Wise, a Carrick, an Ince even.
Let’s face it, England scored a shabby first goal in a match that had just started to get interesting.
Nigel Martyn continues to cost England a goal a game.
He spilled a free-kick that went under England’s jumping wall. He should have parried the ball out for a corner but he knocked it back into play and Mild made it 1-1.
Just like his goal at Elland Road in the 3-3 five years ago, a replica goal : a shot, Tim Flowers fumbled it, Mild followed up to score.
Things perked up a lot after an hour when Sven brought on much better players : Sheringham, Anderton, Fowler, Murphy and Danny Mills.
Suddenly England had variation, more possession, more intelligence, more options, some good moves, more white shirts in the last third.
If Sven had played Darren Anderton from the start England would have won 4-1. But he didn’t want that score. A draw suited everybody, especially him.
So I thought the game was a wasted opportunity.He should be looking to organise his team now.
Unfortunately, the media think football is about selection.
It’s not. It’s about organisation, about a coach who can get the team which only plays once every five weeks to pass and move, to read each other, to form coherent groups and patterns during a game, so that they can attack and defend effectively.
To hold an audition for the media, for West Ham and Sunderland fans, should be beneath Sven by now.
The World Cup will be full of teams who are better than Germany and Greece, so England will have to improve their passing and thinking to unlock those defences. That is obvious.
The FA have hired a foreign coach, a guy I love, a Swede I supported from day one.
But now that we have qualified he should do some coaching. Get England playing a bit. We won 5-1 in Munich and since then we haven’t played well and haven’t won because there is a lack of close-passing skills.
Sweden, a nation of nine million people, were better organised than England and had neater close-passing habits and superior off-the-ball movement.
At least Saturday morning produced one good silly moment. I was watching Gazzetta Football Italia as always when Caroline, a Gooner, got up and came down and sat watching it in her pyjamas.
Players were scoring with header after header. After one especially spectacular header flew into the net she said, “I wish we had somebody who can do that !”
I said, “You might be 22 before you see an Arsenal player do that. You’re 16 now and Wenger will be there for the next five years. He hasn’t believed in scoring with headers for the last five years and he won’t believe in it for the next five.”
On this familiar theme I’m a bad influence on my daughter. But the day later proved that my daughter is a bad influence on me.
She and Jan came back from shopping without the Billy Elliott video they had threatened to rent.
Instead, it was Bridget Jones’s Diary. They had seen this as a movie and said, “It’s a chick flick – you wouldn’t like it.”
So I watch England v Sweden and her pals Cara and Tom come round and the five of us have dinner and they have all seen the film before but they want to see it again and they insist I stop watching the Republic of Ireland v Iran play-off first leg, which is 0-0 after 35 minutes, so we can all watch Bridget Jones.
I’m not hen-pecked normally but I foolishly agree to watch this jolly little comedy while the three sixthformers chatter and scoff icecream from tubs Tom and Cara have brought.
After the film I switch on Ceefax and the Republic have won 2-0 (Ian Harte penalty and Robbie Keane).
I’m delighted that Robbie,one of my favourite players,has scored such a vital goal. I would have liked to see the second half and I would have LOVED that goal.
Kids, who needs them?
But this soccer-junkie will have his revenge on Sunday morning.
They will be asleep as I watch Australia v France at 8.30 a.m.
10th November 2001.
ENGLAND : Martyn, Gary Neville (Mills 58),Southgate, Ferdinand, Carragher (Phil Neville 86),Beckham, Butt (Murphy 58), Scholes (Lampard 86), Sinclair (Fowler 58) Heskey (Sheringham 58), Phillips (Anderton 58).
OTHER SUBS: Wright, Powell, Keown, Ehiogu, Smith, Walker.
SWEDEN: Hedman (Kihlstedt 45), Christoffer Andersson Michael Svensson, Mjallby(Jakobsson 62), Edman Linderoth (Daniel Andersson 45), Alexandersson (Soderstrom 84)
Mild, Magnus Svensson (Anders Svensson 45), Allback Ibrahimovic (Osmanovski 74).
OTHER SUBS: Selakovic, Torneliusson, Audyun.
Referee: C Colombo (France).