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.