I’m not terribly interested in what footballers say.
I’m much more interested in what they do on the pitch.
Yes, I spent years phoning footballers to get stories that I sold to newspapers and magazines.
I learned that what players say isn’t usually very interesting.
I’ve interviewed scores of musicians and footballers and, believe me, musicians are far more perceptive, original and amusing. You would expect that.
However, I always want to hear what Cesc Fabregas says.
He\’s smarter, more grounded, more sensible than almost all of them. I’ve always said that. As a player, as a character, I love the guy, always have. And I’m delighted he’s now playing in a great club side and on course to win trophies.
I still hope Fabregas comes back to manage Arsenal one day. He would be a superb manager, if he wanted to be.
In today’s papers Fabregas is quite extensively quoted under prominent headlines.
And I agree with most of what he says. He says England were boring. That’s true. That\’s fair comment.
But if you don’t score you don’t win games.
I think he had the hump because he missed that late chance. He was unmarked, he ran onto a pass from David Villa, and hit the ball just past the base of the post. If Fabregas scores in the 89th, England don’t win that game on Saturday.
Always remember : the main component of the Latin personality is pride.
Spain are proud champions and expected to win, Fabregas expected to win, and he probably expected to score. So there\’s a tiny bit of sour grapes here.
Fabregas said, “We saw two very different styles of teams. One defensive and one trying to play football and trying to score goals. In the end, the one trying to score goals didn\’t and the one not trying did. So it was a very weird game.â€
“It\’s difficult to say who played well for England. They were defending basically the whole game. Normally England don\’t play like that when Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere are available but unfortunately they were without a few players and maybe it was an obligation to play like that.
“Overall, England are a very solid team and if they have Jack back it will make a massive difference to this team. He is the one with the talent to make things happen and on Saturday we didn\’t see this really.
“We are getting used to this kind of game but that\’s not an excuse. We knew the only way they could score was from a set-piece and we conceded a bad free-kick and they scored.
“You cannot say it doesn\’t matter. Spain are the world and European champions and we always want to win but we definitely prefer to lose this match than in an important game. “
Maybe Spain will meet England againt next summer in Poland or Ukraine.
If so, I hope Wayne, Jack and Ashley Young are playing.
We don’t have as many accomplished footballers as they do, so Spain should beat us on a neutral ground in a pressure game.
It’s undeniable that England have a 20-year history of not winning those big games. But until 2008, Spain had a 50-year history of not winning those big games. Their success-cycle will not go on forever.
We might have a chance. No team is unbeatable.