Fabio Capello. Now This is a Test.

OK, so RTG is on its Beckham bashing soap box, again, but the issues surrounding Beckham epitomise exactly what RTG is railing against in modern football.

For the record, let us just reiterate. He was a great footballer with the sweetest right foot of several generations. He contributed immensely to Manchester United’s success and he was a stalwart of arguably the greatest midfield quartets ever. He also does usually give everything in an England shirt. That was then. Now is a different matter. Rightly or wrongly he chose a path to further his ‘career’ in a league that is barely English League 1 standard. We say career in his truest sense of the word – that of a media celebrity.

Sir Alex Ferguson has joined the chorus of bleating sheep saying that Beckham deserves his 100th cap irrespective of what England needs. Last week Beckham went to Sierra Leone; this week he’s in Brazil. Interspersed between these wonderful photo ops are pictures of him on a foggy Arsenal training pitch enjoying the banter and wet-towel slapping frolics of the Arsenal squad (Bendtner and Adebayor excepted). So imagine RTG’s surprise when waking up this morning to reports that Fabio Capello is having serious reservations about including Beckham in the squad. Is it just us or are other genuine supporters angry about how trivialised playing for your country has become?

Here is a man who has not played at a world class standard for nearly a year and who has not played a competitive match since his substitute’s appearance versus Croatia. Note also he only played a couple of handfuls of games for Real Madrid in his final season with them. Meanwhile we have an England team that has failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament and who need, at this time more than any, need to concentrate on getting the right players, tactics and systems in place. What do we get? Tiresome, and never ending, discussions on one person’s tribute to celebrityville.

Reports suggest that Capello wants to break with the tradition of naming a 23 man squad and pick an initial squad of 30 in order to see more players close-up at England training sessions. Which led RTG to thinking that ALL the English players in the Premier League (who are not too old, on crutches or serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure) should be included in the England preparation for EVERY game. This would cover all age groups. There are probably only 50-60 players across all ages that fall into this group. Gone would be the endless speculation about who is injured or who ‘deserves’ inclusion. What Capello and his staff would get to see is every English player’s motivation and commitment, up close. Plus, it starts the important process of building the concept of Team England. Of course, we assume that there will exist a suitable place (i.e. Burton) for this to take off.

Hopefully, Capello will see sense and treat this game against Switzerland as the beginning of a new era and not a salute to the last. After all, what is there really to salute?

Reclaim the Game – The Weekend’s Events

• Talking of tiresome, never ending discussions, the Toon (nostalgia and return of the messiah) army now await with baited breath over the potential return of Alan Shearer in their so-called ‘dream ticket’. Amazing, that multi-million pound organisations can make decisions influenced more on the principles of the schoolyard than those of serious businesses.
• Derby County are the latest club to find themselves with new American owners. The new owners were quick to point out that their management style is more Randy Lerner of Aston Villa and less Gillett and Hicks of Liverpool. The group to take over is an organisation called General Sports and Entertainment. Hmmmmmm…….not hopeful.
• The African Nations Cup, currently being played out in Ghana, has been rocked by a series of bribe scandals. Sketchy reports and accusations have been made, but officials of CAF so far are attempting to bury the story in the hope that it will go away. Watch this space.
  
  Hats Off, Take a Bow (or Not)!
  
  Player of the Week: Alfie Potter of Havant and Waterlooville (but on loan from Peterborough). Not just because he has a name that is a throw back to cloth caps and jumpers for goal posts, but also because for a few minutes at least, neutrals dared to dream of the greatest cup upset of them all.
  
  Villain of the Week: Yossi Benayoun. OK a bit harsh on Yossi but he spoilt the dream of the greatest cup upset of them all.
  
  Heroes of the Week: Havant and Waterlooville who led for most of the first half. Excellent effort – even if their team was shored up with a smattering of loan professionals.
  
  Shock of the Week: this week’s shock is one of the literal kind – how we laughed at the look of shock on Michael Ball’s face when he realised that he was clearing a balloon rather than the ball which resulted in United’s first goal in their ‘shock’ win against City.
  
  Cliché of the Week: With a Potter playing in the magical FA Cup 4th round, all those media muppets couldn’t help themselves in trying to describe Havant and Waterlooville’s exploits in terms of being more ‘Harry Potter’ than ‘Alfie Potter’.

FA's Incompetence Makes England Supporters World Cup Weary

“We want to basically make sure we get the right person. We want to be patient, if that’s the right way to go about it. It’s a big job ahead of us. We have a real genuine responsibility to deliver on it this time…”

The words of FA Chief Executive, Brian Barwick, before adding that finding the new England manager was, “a hare and tortoise thing”. (What?).

Apart from being fairly incomprehensible as a statement, RTG just doesn’t believe that the FA has the right people or structure to select the right person. And in case he doesn’t realise it, it was his duty to deliver it last time as well. And look what we got: a manager who was effectively a ‘dead man walking’ from the day of his appointment.

He was never anybody’s first choice but he did satisfy one criterion for the xenophobic media in being English. Once it started to go wrong, they turned on him also which made him focus too much attention on managing his media persona rather than the team. His spin-engineered press conferences were, at best, dreary and told us very little. He sought to compound that error by appointing Terry Venables as his number two as a defensive cloak – an appointment, by the way, that served to create more confusion, more strife and more disruption. When is English football going to realise that El Tel, whatever successes he has enjoyed in his past, is not a good person to have around? God help the Irish if they appoint him as their manager.

But, and a very important but it is too: is there really any point in appointing any new manager if the FA is not to be first restructured and reorganised to reflect some defined objectives for the running of English football? In recent times, the lack of objectives has seen us can the Burton FA’s School of Excellence in favour of financing the New Wembley stadium. What else has this got us? Having to play American Football on the pitch less than a month before the most important game to be played there yet.

If there is no serious rethink and action on changing the way that football is run in England, then there really was no point in sacking Steve Mclaren and it would have been a darn sight cheaper for the bean counters at the FA. Yes, a new manager may instil a short-term boost of enthusiasm, especially for those players who’ve come to expect their England place is guaranteed. We will also have the usual media honeymoon period and perhaps even a few good results. But this will just be papering over the cracks yet again.

Given the apparent fiscal objectives of the FA, RTG expects that the ideal solution for 2010 World Cup qualification would be to finish second in the group thus necessitating the need for another ‘earner’ in a play-off at Wembley. Was it only us, though, who felt decidedly ambivalent toward the World Cup draw yesterday, as it sought only to reinforce our disappointment at not having a competitive match to play until September 2008. Yes. 10 months!

But, the World Cup draw did bring home a particular issue that RTG has felt strongly about for some time – namely getting rid of the geographic element and having world cup qualification groups drawn based solely on rankings. England must travel nine hours and three and a half thousand miles to play Kazakhstan. If we can go there then we could travel to most of Africa, the Caribbean, North America, parts of Central America and as far East as Bangladesh. It would also remove the situation where some regions are playing disproportionate numbers of games e.g. CONMEBOL who play 18 matches to remove five of ten teams and for Brazil and Argentina to always qualify. CONCACAF is similar in that USA and Mexico always qualify. Of the top 32 teams in the Fifa World Rankings, Europe occupies 23 places yet receives just 13 of the 32 slots for the World Cup finals.

World Groups are a win win situation for all involved. Players play less matches, clubs lose fewer players for international duty and we get the best 32 teams in the world competing in a competition whose quality has been declining in recent times. Plus, the world can coordinate its diary in order to plan suitable times when matches can be played as conveniently as possible for clubs, players and countries.

Sounds a bit too sensible that doesn’t it!

Reclaim the Game - The Weekend's Events

• The big smiles and happy faces of the Croatian players at the singing of their national anthem was taken by several pundits as an example of their burning pride and ambition as a contrast to England's limp approach. Apparently not. The cause of the hilarity was that singer, Tony Henry had actually mispronounced the opening line of the anthem. Instead of "You know my dear how we love your mountains”, he appears to have sung, "My dear, my penis is a mountain”. However, at least England may have some representation in Austria/Switzerland because Croatia want Mr Henry to be their official mascot at the tournament.
• Media Madness for potential England Manager observed over the weekend: Alan Shearer. Tony Adams. Steve Coppell. Terry Venables. Slaven Bilic. Gerrard Houllier. Harry Redknapp. Stuart Pearce. There are bound to be others but we'd like to throw the hats of Brian Clough and the kid that won the Fifa 2006 computer game tournament in to the ring.
• A prime example of why England suffers at international level could be seen on Match of the Day on Saturday night. Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer rightly criticised the current FA structure and development of players (now). But then proceeded to illustrate the short-sightedness of the whole football industry by extolling the virtues of Bolton's over physical approach by describing it as "work rate, desire and honesty". These are always seen as the overriding virtues of English players and until we move away from this narrow view of the world, we will achieve nothing.
• SOS! Talksport's (and others') campaign to reinstate the Home Internationals to, "Save our Summer" should be given the short shrift that it deserves. There are enough pointless tournaments and matches in the close season already. Its unfortunate that none of us will be there but players (and spectators) could use a break so let's take the opportunity to give them one.
  

Hats Off, Take a Bow! (or not).

Player of the Week – Tim Cahill. Bossed the game in a 7-1 drubbing of Sunderland and a wonderful performance that was always waiting to happen.

Heroes of the Week – Staines Town. A big up for the Staines Massive in their defeat of Stockport County in the FA Cup. We just wanted to say the word massive but honourable mentions to Forest Green for thrashing Rotherham 3-0 at Millmoor and Hereford United for beating 'higher flying' Leeds United at Elland Road.

Villain of the Week – Idiot pundits who keep making stupid and ill considered suggestions as to the next England manager's identity. The most frustrating thing about England is those people who claim to have an expert knowledge, and indeed you would think they should, but suffer from the whole England football problem of lack of education - in its formal sense.

Cliche of the Week – Up to the Ladies to show the men how to do it. Having beaten Spain, 1-0, the England Women's team now top their Euro qualification group. Great effort and hats off to them but RTG couldn't really give a damn given current circumstances. Sorry but that's the way we feel.

Shock of the Week - We knew the media were stupid but Alan Shearer? Come on!