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So
SvenGali Eriksson finally ran out of the magic to mesmerise and
fell upon his sword, though this will be one of those long, lingering
exits, his passing not completed until the day England lift the
World Cup or, more likely, perish on the way to the summit.
Putting an end to it all only confirms what anyone with any brain
already knew. Forget the newspapers scandals, the fake sheikh, the
entrapment charges. Forget Fariah Ulrika Nancy, the fun time trio.
The World Cup was always going to be the end of the road for Sven.
If England did go and win it, what better time to quit – after
all, just what are you going to do for an encore after that? Beat
Mars?
And if England should fail to win, with the so-called golden generation
at his disposal, was there ever any way in which his continued presence
would be tolerated by the rabid newspapers who always need a scapegoat
to blame for England’s ever dwindling prestige in every walk
of life. Who better to kick than that damned foreigner?
Breathtakingly naïve in his ability to do the daft thing and
get himself in the papers, at least that side of things should be
passing into the past now. After all, why try to bring down a man
who’s already on the way out? That in itself is a relief given
that most of us are sick to death of reading this rubbish –
when did the newspapers decide that it was up to them to make the
news rather than reflect it?
So Sven might have been stupid to talk to someone he didn’t
know about a job in management after the World Cup, but who’s
to blame him for looking – like I say, we all knew the World
Cup was going to be the end of the road. But for a paper to trap
him is pathetic. He’s a football manager for God’s sake,
it’s not like his financial morality matters. Entrapping a
sleazy politician is one thing, but a bespectacled bank manager
posing as football intellectual? Who cares?
Ironically though, the press might have actually done Sven, and
all of us, a favour. Fir far too long now, it’s seemed as if
Sven has chosen his England teams with at least one eye on the response
he’s liable to get from the newspapers. His determination to
shoehorn Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard into the same central midfield,
however badly it works, smacks of someone who knows that at least
if they lose, he won’t get headlines condemning him for not
picking one or other of the three.
“Swedehead Sven drops Becks – FA must drop Sven”
were headlines he clearly wanted to avoid, for if Sven only understood
one thing about the British press – and that’s about as
much as he did understand – it was their ability to get him
the push. Constantly trying to second guess the drunken thought
processes of those who put the back pages together, Sven has spent
much of the last three years in a state of paralysis, ever since
the critics got their knives out after England lost to Brazil in
the last World Cup.
Trying to pick the team that will get him the least criticism might
be a perfectly human defence mechanism, but it’s no way to
run a railroad is it? Attacks on his perceived lack of passion –
which means his inability to rant incoherently on the touchline
while going purple in the face, not a criticism ever aimed at Mourinho
for instance – are just a red herring. Where Sven has fallen
down is in his failure to do his own thing, to pick the side, the
tactics, the substitutions he wants. Instead, the latter stages
of his managerial career with England have been characterised by
management by committee – an imaginary committee that sits
in Sven’s head, consisting of what he thinks are the opinions
of the sports editors of the tabloid newspapers. No wonder none
of it makes sense – I wouldn’t trust those people to pick
their noses, never mind an England side.
But now, none of that matters. Sven is off in July, not before,
and there’s an end to it. He can become his own man again if
he can remember where he left himself. The shrewd managerial guru
who masterminded one of the greatest England wins of all time, 5-1
in Germany, to qualify for a World Cup that had seemed beyond us
under Kevin Keegan. Has the football brain been dulled by the constant
battles with the media, or has it merely been hibernating, ready
to burst into life when it really matters?
Now he can pick and choose his players and if the papers don’t
like it, tough. He has absolute freedom now. Sven has rendered himself
completely fireproof in the most crucial phase of his England management
career, the months leading up to the first World Cup that England
have had a realistic chance of winning since 1970.
Maybe
he isn’t such a mug after all…
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