By Myles Palmer
England 1 Australia 3
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I was sulking before the game.
Wasn’t up for it.
I wanted to see Rooney and Jenas in the full England team, not the kids eleven who took over at half-time.
Jermaine Jenas is special,Wayne Rooney is special.
Lampard, Beattie and all the others are average. They are B-internationals.
But Sven has his pecking order. He believes in status and stars and icons.
Sven never does anything too radical.And he bows and scrapes to the club managers too much.
England will NOT beat Turkey home or away.
I said that last year and I’m saying it again now. We are not good enough. We lack craftsmanship and we make heroes of the wrong players, like Michael Owen.
So I was sulking tonight.
And waiting for Caroline to make dinner.It’s nice to have your 17-year old daughter cook dinner for Mum and Dad, plus school pal Keirra.
But Caroline and Keirra went to the tube station to hand out STOP THE WAR COALITION leaflets to people coming home from work.
And badges saying: STOP THE WAR-Demonstrate Saturday 15 Feb 2003,12 noon Embankment.
So by the time they got back and cooked Cajun chicken and we had eaten it and had a laugh or three it was 7.55 p.m. and I didn’t really care what time England or France were kicking off.
I was flicking between England-Australia on Channel 21 and France-Czech Republic on Channel 12.
I started with France, who kicked off earlier.Henry and Wiltord were playing, Vieira and Pires were on the bench.
And we saw that Zidane can drop a clanger, just like a normal player can.The great man chested a ball and then miskicked it and Zdenek Gryera blasted it past keeper Rame from 25 yards.Rame should have saved the shot.
I flick over at 8.12 and David James is singing,”God Save The Queen”.
Back in Paris the crowd is whistling and booing as France are being outplayed.
The giant Jan Koller backheels accurately on the halfway line.Things look bad for France. I wonder if Santini will have to bring Vieira on before half-time to stabilise things.
I flicked back to England and….. they were 1-0 down.
Missed the goal, a free-kick on the right,swung in to the far post, Gary Neville gets it wrong and Popovic heads in from two yards.
Reminds me of a simliar goal Franca scored for Brazil at Wembley.Neville was nowhere on that one as well.
ENGLAND ARE PLAYING 4-4-2 and it’s hopeless.
Theres no link play, no fluency, James Beattie is clueless, just another big lump in a long line of big lumps.Scholes nets but theres been a foul by Beattie, crashing into the back of the defender.
It’s horrible to watch. I wanted to see Rooney and Jenas.
James tips over a Viduka header.
The Man United players are poor: Beckham, Scoles, Neviolle, Ferdinand.
Then Lampard loses the ball just inside the Australian half, Rio tries to be too flash, takes a big risk, bounces off Kewell and falls, leaving Kewell to waltz round James and make it 2-0 to Australia !
Very sloppy by Rio. He knows what Kewell can do. He doesn’t need me or Sven or anybody to tell him what Harry Kewell can do.
It’s 0-2 and game over.
In Paris a loose ball falls to Gallas but he blazes over with his left foot.
BAROS comes on as a sub, plays a one-two with the other sub, sprints into the box, beating Gallas(!) and sidefoots past Rame for 2-0.
This game is over as well- after only 61 minutes.
Flick back to England and find Jenas wearing 19 and Rooney wearing 23 in the young reserve team Sven uses for the second half.
Rooney has a shot after Jenas backheels.
Joe Cole is not playing and there is a front three of Jeffers, Vassell and Rooney.
After 69, Rooney chest a ball down, plays it wide for Jenas, who whips in a fantastic cross, perfet for anyobdy making a run to the near post.
And JEFFERS pops up with a running header, glances the ball across and into the net for 1-2.
It’s English football: dynamic, penetrating, doing simple things quickly, attacking space, getting on the end of a good early ball.
If the ball is going ito a dangerous area, be first to it!
Jeffers has scored a Martin Chivers goal, a Pippo Inzaghi kind of goal. He is deadly on this kind of chance.
Jenas is the best pure footballer we have produced since Gazza,and he has a better temperament than Gazza or Gerrard.
Rooney is the best striker we have produced since Robbie Fowler, and maybe since Jimmy GReaves.
Their age doesn’t matter. It would be pointless for them to play football against players of their own age. They are both far too good for that.
They can’t lean anythng that way. They need to be somewhere where they can watch and grow and improve and consolidate and improve again.
I flick back and France are still losing 2-0 in the 90th minute.
Aloisi has come on for Kewell and he takes on Ledley KIng and Brett Emerton breaks inside him, into the box, for a slightly lucky pass, outsprinting Owen Hargreaves, and knocks it past Paul Robinson for 3-1.
So England’s World Cup team have lost the first half 2-0.
But young England have drawn the second half 1-1.
Young England showed more energy, more skill, more feel for the game, more flair, more ideas.
Alf Ramsey once said that Martin Peters was ten years ahead of his time and Jenas is the same.
He can support the play either side like Ossie Ardiles and he can run box to box like Alan Ball.
He can tackle,shoot,poach,head the ball, read the game.As Kieron Dyer said the other day,”He’s the complete package.”
Dyer should know.He trains with him every day at Newcastle and plays with him twice a week.
Decades ago I read a long short story by Joyce Carol Oates in which a character says,”I wish that once, just once,they would surprise me.”
That is how I feel about Engerland these days.
Gary Neville was absolutely awful.He was appalling. And the other three United players were below average.
And it WAS weird that those players knew they were playing only half the match.
That makes it an unEnglish event.Because English football is about commitment.If it hasn’t got that, it’s got nothing.So it’s pointless.
Michael Owen is so off-from that he should not have played.
Sven is too conventional. Not bold enough.He can’t see the wood for the trees and his thinking is not as rigorous as I thought it would be.
On this evidence the next England team should be:
ROBINSON, MILLS FERDINAND CAMPBELL COLE, BECKHAM JENAS SCHOLES, ROONEY JEFFERS.
February 12th 2003