England's Euro 2012 post-mortem

So another quarter final penalty exit for England, hardly a surprise with our history. Yet we were unbeaten, not that that fact equals success in tournament football. After all Spain won the 2010 World Cup after losing their first game. We topped our group with two wins and a draw, a successful 3 games after expectations suggested pre-tournament we would be happy to simply get through the group. Looking back our group wasn’t too difficult; France failed to show up to the tournament having been a lot of people’s outsider to big it all (including mine), Ukraine had home advantage but nothing much else and Sweden were defensively shocking until they were already out of the tournament and caused a big shock in beating France.

Hope and pride seemed to return to the players, coaching staff and the fans both at the games and back home. Well it certainly returned before the Italy game. That ‘we can win it’ spirit and ‘football’s coming home’ feeling was creeping back into people’s minds and the opening 15 minutes of the quarter final was the best football we played all tournament. It was as if the players suddenly felt comfortable with the ball, were making intelligent runs and it seemed like we would do it. If that Glen Johnson chance had gone in early maybe it would have been a different story and we would be looking forward to a semi-final against the Germans. However, Italy seemed to wake up to our early threat and controlled the game from then on. Before the game I wrote how the Rooney v Pirlo battle would be the key to the game as they like to operate in the same space. In the end this was a non-contest as Pirlo controlled where the ball went all game it seemed. Rooney was nowhere to be seen when Pirlo had the ball and England’s ball retention was so shocking there was no need for De Rossi to stay close to Rooney when we had the ball as we had no threat. Surely the fact Pirlo would boss the game and control Italy wasn’t hard to predict? That hope I had seen come back quickly disappeared as our ultimate weakness returned, our inability to keep the ball.

It has been argued that a semi-final against the Germans would have been too embarrassing for us so it was a good thing we did lose to Italy to save us that shame but surely a semi-final appearance is much better than a quarter final defeat? I can see the reason behind this argument but once again it would have united the country, we would have won a penalty shootout and we would have still made the same conclusions we have now yet would have had another game.

Every pundit who backed Roy Hodgson as the right appointment pre-tournament is now suddenly an expert in how England should play, how our style is poor and miles behind other nations. Well congratulations for finally coming to the party. Hodgson has played 4-4-2 his whole managerial career and his teams are built on defensive solidarity. England had that in this tournament, barring the Sweden game which was far too open for his liking. That game was the most Premier League-like game; poor defending, lack of shape and a decent amount of attacking play leading to goals. A 3-2 win compared to a 1-0 win is the difference between an exciting open game and a boring game according to most people, everyone does love goals after all. Ask Roy Hodgson and he will take 1-0 wins every day of the week, ask Harry Redknapp and he will take 3-2 wins. Redknapp is tactically inept, no doubt a great motivator but he would simply pick his 11 best players and tell them to go and play with a smile on their face. International football is about discipline, shape and possession. That’s why Hodgson was the perfect choice.

The popular point pundits are now making is that we do have the players but the system is the problem. We always have some excuse; heat, injuries, foreign manager, no winter break, no luck, can’t score penalties, formation. How refreshing it would be to hear someone ignore all that and state that we don’t have players who are comfortable enough on the ball and give it away far too easily. Possession is 9 tenths of the law (or the football pitch in this case). You can’t concede if you have the ball, you can only score. Hardly rocket science but yet we consistently give the ball away without stringing more than 3 passes together. There is no doubt our youth system is in a bad place and the English tendency to look at physical attributes over technical ones is massively flawed. You can grow and get stronger with age but you either have technique or you don’t, it can’t be taught. Scott Parker is the prime example of this for me. No doubt a good player who has that stereotypical English spirit and attitude, heart on his sleeve and would throw his body into any challenge but his technique is awful. He takes 3 touches to control a ball and struggles with passing over more than 10 yards. His job in the England team is to break up play, the same job Sergio Busquets does for Spain. A detailed comparison isn’t necessary, it’s clear to see.

The new National Football Centre in Burton is a step in the right direction and in 10-12 years we will hopefully see results from this set up in our style and the quality of young players we bring through. The whole English football philosophy needs to change which isn’t an easy thing to do. It’s a huge long term project but if it does work and we start to play better interesting football where we pass the ball, keep it on the floor and make runs off the ball to support the player in possession I’m prepared to wait for a few more tournaments. England performed better in Euro 2012 than they did in 2010 so there are some positives to take from this and hopefully opening people’s eyes up to the sort of style we should be developing will lead to long term positives from our performances. It doesn’t matter what system the team plays if they can’t keep the ball, players don’t make themselves available and are unhappy to be in possession even when under pressure a team will get nowhere. Even with no expectation the team showed themselves to simply not be good enough and too far behind the real big boys in international football. We had no strength in depth, all be it Lampard and Barry were injured, to change things in the middle of the pitch.

There will be a lot of speculation about where England go from here and the team that will start the friendly against Italy on August 15^th. Hodgson has to be the man to get rid of the old players and bring in and develop the youth in preparation for the 2014 World Cup. Kyle Walker at right back, Micah Richards at centre back, Wilshere (if fit) in centre midfield, the Ox and Walcott wide and Sturridge involved somehow must be the plan going forward. I’ve had enough of the old guard now. It’s time for changes. 

Last thing we need now is expectation

Injuries, a change of manager, various questions over player selection and a 2 game ban to our best player yet England won Group D with 7 points going unbeaten. Two wins and a draw was surely what only the most optimistic of England fans would have expected. The performances against France and Ukraine were very disciplined with two clear banks of four and England taking any chances they could to attack but never over-committing. Hodgson would have been furious with the second half of the Sweden game, yes we won and his Walcott substitution worked out really well but there was no shape of defensive discipline in the display. The goals we conceded were extremely poor. Hodgson's teams are built on defensive solidarity first and foremost which is why Parker and Gerrard have sat so deep (which cost us on the Nasri goal in the first game) and why Milner is playing on the right over Walcott or Oxlade-Chamberlain.

England have succeeded in the group stages playing reactive football which is exactly how we should be playing, as I explained pre-tournament. We don't have the quality to play any other way and it has worked for teams this season, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid in the Champions League and Europa League finals. England have done this without the whole country saying "We can win it" and everyone expecting big things from these players. Having reached the knockout stages these thoughts might start to creep back in to the media and conversations between people down the pub and at work....DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN! The worst thing that could happen to us now, except for an injury, would be for expectations to rise up. The reaction to the way we play football in this tournament seems to have been one of acceptance. Winning and progression at tournaments is what counts at the end of the day rather than the style of football a team plays. In other countries like Spain, Germany and Holland the style is equally as important, just see the kind of bad press Bert van Marwijk gets from his decision to play van Bommel and de Jong. His decision was shown to be correct after the Portugal game as they were opened up consistently with only one player protecting the back four. The fact we haven't won anything since 1966 may be a big part of this. We crave success and have finally realised we are not going to achieve that playing like Barcelona or dominate a tournament with great flowing football. We have to succeed playing football in a different way based on defending and discipline.

Our path to the final starts with Italy on Sunday, likely Germany in the semis and Spain in the final (in my opinion). Germany have been the most impressive team in the tournament dominating their oppositions playing good football and also looking defensively solid. Italy on Sunday will pose an interesting opposition. I feel they played really well for the first 45 minutes against Croatia and also in parts vs Spain but they never seem to take their chances when they are on top or sustain their level of dominance for long periods of play. Italy are traditionally a team who set up not to get beat and that's exactly how England play so Sunday's game would look to be a defensive battle where one moment of quality will change the game. We will be looking to Rooney for this and Italy will be looking to Andrea Pirlo as everything good they do generally comes from him. He is the heartbeat of the team and can play a killer pass from anywhere on the pitch. Mario Balotelli will surely get a lot of press space in the build up to the game and if he fancies it and if he gets on the pitch he can cause us problems. Rooney and Pirlo will be operating in the same area of the pitch though so they may cancel each other out. If I was Prandelli I would play Pirlo on the right of a central midfield three with De Rossi in the middle to cope with the Rooney threat. De Rossi has been excellent for Italy in the group stages starting in a defensive three for the first two games and playing further forward in the final game against Ireland. England will no doubt be looking for fast breaks with Rooney, Welbeck and Young and also set piece opportunities to get goals.

Hodgson has handled the press and expectations extremely well since he was appointed England manager but I think he fully expected us to progress from the group we were in despite home advantage of Ukraine. Having said that Hodgson has now embraced the rising expectation which I feel may be a bad thing. The English public and the press only need a slight indication that we have a chance to succeed and we will see and hear all the usual waffle come back. Keeping expectation to a minimum should be a priority for the whole country, our players crumble under the pressure of penalties but have seemed to flourish (or as much as they can under our system) without the weight of a country on their shoulders. Hopefully they realised that we would be happy to see them in the knockout stages. A win against Italy on Sunday and a place in the semi finals will be our best performance since Euro 96 and an excellent achievement for the players and Roy Hodgson. With no expectation he took Fulham to the final of the Europa League and at every stage the consensus was that they had done really well but would lose. That is the mentality we need to have for this England team, full support for them but realistic expectations.

Spain and their no striker system

Sunday afternoon brought us the biggest surprise from a team selection point of view. Vicente Del Bosque chose to go with 6 traditional midfielders rather than selecting Torres or Llorente up front as a typical striker. The front man of this 6 was generally Cesc Fabregas operating in the false number 9 role, a very Spanish tactic. As soon as Guardiola was appointed Barcelona manager one of the first things he did was to talk to Messi and tell him that he was the best player at the club and that he should therefore be playing closer to the goal. Seemed to be pretty simple - put your best player and attacking threat closer to the goal and he will get more goals. The stats don't lie, it worked. This is not to compare Fabregas to Messi in any way, he is not Spain's most potent goal threat like Messi is with Barcelona. Del Bosque put Cesc in this position in an attempt to drag out De Rossi as he is naturally a defensive midfielder to open up the space in behind him. Fabregas, or the most forward Spanish player, was never going to play right against the last man like David Villa is so good at doing, check his offside numbers to see what I'm talking about. This means that most of the time Fabregas, Silva or Iniesta was going to be at least 5 yards off the last defender as that is how they naturally play - they all look for pockets of space and move into them to receive the ball. This system works well if the defender is drawn out to the ball and then the space in behind him is exploited early by runners from midfield. The onus was on Iniesta to do this as he has the skills and pace as well as the finishing ability. David Silva is a great player but he doesn't possess the pace to run into the box like they required, he would much prefer to be the player to provide the defence splitting ball to the runner, as he did for the goal.

The Spanish goal came from Fabregas making a run in behind Chiellini after he went out to Silva who was in the number 9 position. Spain picked the ball up from a slack pass into Pirlo and Xavi pounced on the chance to win the ball and give it to Iniesta early. The World Cup hero then attacked Italy and drew in at least 3 Italian defenders before laying off to Silva who instantly saw Fabregas' run. That was exactly how Del Bosque would have seen his decision working out with moves like that. Iniesta had a great chance in the first half when he positioned himself in space alongside the back 3 of Italy and could well have finished the move created by Xavi. Spain's best other chances in the first half came from pressing Italy and winning the ball in their own half before breaking whilst the Azzurri had committed men forward. These chances fell to David Silva who will only take chances on his left foot and he failed to truly test Buffon on both occasions.

The Italians played a high pressing game, in the first half the pressure on Busquets led to Cassano winning the ball and being fouled by Sergio Ramos resulting in Pirlo's free kick being saved by Casillas. Their back 3 played very deep for most of the game although arguably when they should have played deepest, when Torres replaced Cesc, they played high and should have been punished for this but Torres couldn't capitalise on his 2 great chances. The first of these chances should see Buffon given more credit than Torres given flack, he knew exactly what Torres was going to do and he didn't go down and foul the Chelsea man. There's no doubt even the world's greatest Lionel Messi would have tried to go round Buffon as well. His second chance was another excellent through ball and he created the chance to chip Buffon himself, but like his season has gone the chance failed to go in. His confidence will surely be very low after these misses and the fact he was overlooked for no striker. Torres said after the game "we didn't practice that system with Cesc". Hardly seems like he was impressed with Del Bosque's decision although I would think his chances of starting the game on Thursday will be much higher after Spain created a lot more when he came on. Both chances Torres had were great through balls that he could run on to, showing it was the right decision to bring him on rather than Llorente who would have struggled to outpace the defence. On the other hand Llorente would have thrived on the crosses Jesus Navas provided when he was introduced on the right hand side.

Once again it looks like Spain will attempt to tire their opposition for the first 60 minutes with excellent possession football and the possibility of creating chances through Tiki Taka football until they introduce the likes of Torres, Navas, Llorente and Pedro to give the opposition other problems to think about. These players are more likely to finish chances created by Xavi, Silva and Iniesta. Back in South Africa, Spain lost their opening game and then dropped Silva and Iniesta for Torres and Jesus Navas. This year I feel we can see the same players come in with Silva and Fabregas dropped so there is more of a traditional shape and not too many similar players. For their third group game they brought Iniesta back in for Navas. If Pedro had been playing yesterday I feel the system would have worked really quite well, he has great pace and his finishing ability is much better than those on display yesterday. He had a down year for Barcelona with the rise of Cuenca, Tello and various injuries on a personal level but he came back in the last few games of the season and started in the Copa del Rey final. His constant pressing of the opposition makes Barcelona tick and sets the precedent from the front which is why I was surprised he didn't play any part yesterday. He would have run into any space left by the Italian back three and you can guarantee he would have been found with the abundance of class Spain had behind him.

My final thoughts go to Xabi Alonso. He is the pass master for Real Madrid and he would walk into any national team in the world, what I would give for him to be English. However, is there room for him in this Spanish team? Del Bosque clearly feels he should be in the team as I'm sure many Spaniards and non-Spaniards do but what does he do that Xavi can't? He is a deep lying ball player, much like Andrea Pirlo whereas Xavi will drift forward and does get on the end of balls delivered in the box. Since Messi has blossomed under Pep in the centre of the pitch Xavi has gone to play at another level. His link up play with Messi is excellent and they often find each other in the box. Del Bosque has seen this change in Xavi's game so he had faith in the Barcelona trio of Xavi, Iniesta and Cesc all to make runs into the box vs Italy.

Can anyone picture Xabi Alonso making this run for the goal Xavi scored against Real Madrid? I may have contradicted myself by explaining how Xavi now operates in a more forward position and can make runs into the box so Busquets needs someone alongside him for protection but he doesn't need that for Barcelona. If Xabi Alonso was to be dropped for one of Pedro, Torres, Llorente or Navas I think we would see Spain finish and create more chances. Xavi could then play slightly deeper but with Busquets behind him he would have faith in his protection. This would also allow Iniesta to come more inside, with Pedro an option on the left and if not then the speedy Jordi Alba could exploit this space from his left back role. I would argue having the midfield trio of Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta with Pedro/Navas, Torres and Silva as the three up front would cause their opposition many more problems and gives them more balance. The loss of David Villa to this team can't be underestimated, Spain's topscorer is relied upon to a large degree to get the goals and be the final link in their great football. Having threats from a front three like that would hopefully mean Iniesta wouldn't attract this sort of attention, but if he did and managed to pass the ball on it would be finished.

Spain, to me, are a great team to watch and play football in the right way even if they don't tend to shoot as soon as they should. That is why David Villa is so key, he won't hesitate to have a go whenever he has a yard of space. I don't think this will be Spain's year as they still need a natural finisher to convert their great play but we saw something yesterday that was very interesting to see.