A footballing heresy

Adverts appeared in the press this week for staff to work on England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The aftermath of a startling victory against Croatia may feel like perfect timing for this patriotic campaign. But the logic is the opposite: Wednesday’s triumph in Zagreb showed why the World Cup must never come back to this country. Apart from the boost to national status and reduced travel costs for supporters, the benefit of a World Cup on home turf is that, as statistics clearly show, it is easier to progress — for reasons of familiarity with pitches, quantity of fans in the stadium, and lack of jet lag for players.

But Fabio Capello, the coach brought in from Italy, has started to argue provocatively that the idea of home advantage does not apply to England. Even before adding his 4-1 in Zagreb to Sven-Goran Eriksson’s 5-1 in Munich — meaning that the team’s two outstanding performances of the past 10 years have occurred in away games — Capello was suggesting that our boys are better when playing in the arenas of their boys.

He advanced this footballing heresy after observing the way in which England’s players freeze at their new expensive Wembley home. In this jingoistic arena, the slightest mistake or hint of failure brings howling derision from the crowd, communicating to the team a lurid preview of next morning’s headlines. This terrifying judgment comes from an unrealistic assessment of England’s abilities. The memory of being the world’s best team in ’66 — and the folk belief that they might have been again in 1970 if someone hadn’t poisoned the goalkeeper — encourages supporters and reporters to dust the trophy-room shelf every four years. If Wednesday’s fixture had ended in defeat, the back pages would have been calling for Capello to be fired; instead discussion turned to the formation he should play in the World Cup final.

Excerpted from a comment by Mark Lawson in ‘The Guardian’

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