.
“I imagine that in boxing, going from the amateur ranks to live with the professionals must be a bit like leaving primary school for secondary school. Suddenly you’ve left a world where everyone is looking out for you and trying to build your confidence, and entered instead a place filled with people who exhibit a baffling and frankly scary level of evil and malice (and yes, that is just the PE teachers).” - Harry Pearson in the Guardian, writing about Amir Khan’s first-round knockout.
Now there may well be those who’s experience of PE teachers is much more positive, but the point is well made by the wonderful Harry P.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/12/jamesdegale.boxing
Scary levels of evil and malice are becoming normal in the everyday lives of many teenagers, both in school and out. The only question for most kids is how to defend themselves when attacked. To use a knife or not to use a knife - that is the question. Though there are those who prefer something with a longer reach, like a baseball bat or a ‘samurai’ sword.
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On a much more positive note, the teenager who grabbed the news headlines last week was Theo Walcott, who played brilliantly and scored three goals against a team rated 5th in the world. But what was most impressive about Walcott was the way he spoke to the TV interviewer after the match. It was such a delight listening to a young footballer, of all people, speaking with incredible poise, maturity, intelligence and modesty. No clichés, no gobbledygook, no stumbling over words, no mangling of syntax or struggling to speak in sentences. How does he do it?
The key words, for his interview, as well as his play on the pitch, are intelligence and maturity. These are not qualities we expect of British footballers. Though they also apply to that other sporting prodigy who recently burst onto the scene from nowhere - Lewis Hamilton.
These two guys need to be case studies for every teenager who aspires to be a decent human being, and hasn’t already embarked on a lifetime of evil and malice. How did they come to be so balanced, so thoughtful, so level-headed, so inspirational in their attitudes?
It’s clearly not just the money and the professional support that’s been helpful. Every professional footballer has more money than he knows what to do with, and can afford to hire an army of life coaches, media coaches, therapists, PR consultants, etc. No, there’s an X factor, and it’s to do with intelligence and maturity.
And by ‘intelligence’ we’re not just talking IQ, though these guys probably have that in abundance too. We’re talking about high levels of spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence and social intelligence. We need to know how they came to have such high levels, and learn lessons that can be applied to the rest of the teenage population.
They also have dedication, imagination and high degrees of creativity. Remember David Pleat’s plea for English football to focus on the need for creativity and imagination, and not just keep banging on about fitness, effort, passion, speed, stamina, etc?
It’s an interesting question whether the new England manager has shown high degrees of creativity and imagination. Surely it’s a no-brainer, totally bloody obvious in fact, that Walcott, given his talents and his speed, and given how important he’ll be in the next World Cup, should be in the team?
Likewise Rooney - the new Peter Beardsley? - able to make as well as take chances, in every sense of the word. Beardsley was another footballer who showed creative intelligence as well as skill, plus modesty and good judgment. Rooney could yet be shaping up in these departments, and given his ratio of goals to games - 1 in 3, which isn’t at all bad given the crap support he’s been given, especially as a lone ‘spearhead’ - he’s another obvious pick.
So is Joe Cole, obviously another talented youth prodigy, who, for all his ego and rashness early on, has surely shown time and again that he’s a natural goal poacher as well as a creative goal-maker, and ought to be in the team, every time.
Where Capello seems to stand out is in reaching the understanding that the team (every team) also needs a big, brave, patient, intelligent front man who can both distract the two central defenders and drag them out of position AND lay on goals for the smaller, more mobile guys who are hopefully buzzing around him. Heskey is a master of that role. I’ve also had a longstanding liking in that role for Crouch, who, for all his physical oddness, has shown himself to have great skills, intelligence, creativity and imagination. His goalscoring record is also exceptional, even if he’s scored most heavily against weak teams. The point with Crouch is that he’s also been let down by lack of proper support and suffered from role confusion.
At this point the obsession with ‘formations’ needs to be ditched. Talking about formations is what pundits love to do, because it fills up time and column inches. But it’s crap, and has been since it got started in the 50’s and 60’s: 3-2-5, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, etc. That stuff makes for static thinking and static play on the pitch, and any game that’s played at high speed cannot, by definition, be static. Imagination, creativity and the element of surprise, all other things being equal, win the game every time.
The Dutch showed this decades ago, and ‘total football’ was nothing more than getting rid of stupid ideas about fixed formations, though having talented and creative players clearly helped.
The current England team arguably need only two conventional midfield players - guys who can hold the ball, switch the direction of play and screen the defence. People like Gerrard, Lampard and Hargreaves can do that stuff, and are also capable of springing forward and scoring goals.
The thing that wins games is having a scary attack, and getting those scary guys as near as possible to the opposition goal as often as possible. Sure, Walcott, Cole and Rooney can chase back and support the midfield with marking and harassment, but their main instinct has to be to get up the field, into the box and along the wings. And be able to shoot and score, which they obviously can.
As for the defence - what’s the point of keeping 4 guys back when most of the time you’re pinning the opposition back in their half or in midfield? I guess we’re stuck with Ferdinand and Terry - but Cole as well? Brown, I have to admit has improved markedly, and is now showing that he can break forward as well as Micah Richards does, who I reckon is a very talented player that has done very well for England.
Ashley Cole used to be capable of making speedy, timely and skillful forward breaks, but he’s become erratic and considerably slower in thought and action, probably because he’s distracted and under-motivated a lot of the time. I’d drop him for good.
Against poor to average teams Richards and Brown should position themselves mainly in midfield with a brief to stay there as much as possible, and get down the wings as much as possible. I might even tell Gerrard he has to play that role - a kind of penetrative fullback cum wingback with a brief to attack but also defend soundly when the other team come forward.
So - in terms of a ‘formation’ I’d suggest a fluid 2-4-3-1 or 2-4-4, with only the two centre backs seen as out and out defenders, plus the goalie, obviously, but let’s not go there.
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Lack of SQ and EQ has also been vary apparent in places like Newcastle recently. This was very well remarked on in Louise Taylor’s recent column in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/11/newcastleunited
“Only connect. EM Forster used this phrase as an epigraph to Howards End and it is a theme that also runs through another of his fabulous novels, A Passage to India. Reporting on the muddle, mistrust and multiple fractures in communications at Newcastle United last week the thought struck me that had those books been made compulsory reading on Tyneside, and at West Ham too, Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley might not have tendered their resignations.”
“Unfortunately, though, in an era when clubs spend thousands on communications departments, their ego-laden, money and point-scoring obsessed senior employees frequently prove spectacularly bad at connecting with each other.”
“If a list of compulsory reading for 21st-century football men had been placed on club desks everyone might have realised that the subplots of Forster's books centre on the way unpleasantness inevitably flows from a failure to compromise.”
“As Mark Bright admitted when launching a scheme to encourage football fans to read, fiction really can prompt lateral thinking. "Reading helps you see the bigger picture," insisted Bright. "If I was still a player I'd take an hour out of each day and get myself to the library." What a Wise idea.”
Very well said, Louise.
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