|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
England hasn't earned respect
Posted: Saturday June 10, 2000 04:12 PM
Ask around the training grounds of Holland and Belgium: "Which country will win Euro 2000?" and you'll hear very few, if any, predictions of English success. Kevin Keegan's team includes David Beckham, runner-up in FIFA's World Footballer of the Year voting, his Manchester United teammate Paul Scholes, the sometimes electrifying Michael Owen, the leading scorer in Euro 96 Alan Shearer and one of Real Madrid's Champions League stars Steve McManaman. And yet not once have I heard them mentioned as possible candidates for the European Championship crown. Spain, yes. Holland, certainly. France, most definitely. But England? Not a whiff of title respect.
Even Italy and Germany, with dubious form coming into Euro 2000, are considered in higher esteem. But then their past records warrant recognition. Even when they are below par, they can raise the level of their performance when it really matters. The English, though, have missed out on several major tournament finals over the years since their 1966 and 1970 World Cup heyday. They missed the World Cup finals in 1974, 1978 and 1994. They failed to make the European Championship finals in 1984 and were sent home embarrassed from Euro finals in 1980, 1988 and 1992. Every time they qualify for a major tournament, hopes are raised by gung-ho patriots. But what they ever base their enthusiasm on is beyond me. I've been caught up in it before. As an English youngster who loved football, it was hard not to in my formative years. But not any more. Now I'm far more realistic. I've experienced too many let downs by supposed England "challengers." I appreciate that for all their talented players, like Beckham, Scholes and Owen, England rarely perform to the standards one would expect of a serious and accomplished title contender. That's the way it's been for a while. Keegan, who saw his team scrape through to Euro 2000 in the playoffs against Scotland, said recently that England had been underachieving for years. He declared it was time to change that.
His biggest Euro 2000 rivals apparently think that time isn't now. Spanish coach Jose Antonio Camacho said that his team had no right to be considered among the favorites. Let us achieve something on the international stage first, he said, then maybe we can mentioned in the same breath as Germany, Italy and Holland. That's exactly how England should tackle things. It should be humble and understated. They should point to the fact, as Keegan did, that it has been an age since the English team was a true world or European power. A flirtation with the World Cup final in 1990 is as good as they've had it since winning the trophy 34 years ago. Even then, they were fortunate to survive Belgium and Cameroon in the two previous rounds. They lost on penalties to Germany in the end, just as they did in hosting Euro 96. Again, penalties cost them after a truly gutsy display against Argentina at France 98. But hard-luck stories just don't cut the mustard. It should be no surprise to anyone, least of all the England camp, that England is a Euro 2000 afterthought. They'll continue to be on the second tier of international teams until the day they consistently offer the football world a glimpse of an assured, cohesive and ever so slightly arrogant team -- one that can enter a tournament breathing fear into the opposition, rather than being cast aside before a ball has even been kicked. It's a heavy and ponderous chain the English carry with them into Monday's Group A opener against Portugal, made up link-by-link of failure upon failure. Only Keegan knows in his heart if his squad's ready to break free of the shackles.
Phil Jones is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International. Jones is part of the World Sport crew that is in the Netherlands and Belgium covering Euro 2000.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
