Читать книгу Sven-Goran Eriksson - Joe Lovejoy - Страница 6

Sven-Goran Eriksson rejected criticisms of his ‘negativity’, but as significant as Rio Ferdinand’s suspension from Euro 2004, or the injury sustained by Wayne Rooney in the quarter-finals, was the absence of Eriksson’s assistant, Brian Kidd, who was recovering from prostate cancer. Kidd was a positive influence, an attack-minded coach, whose reaction to adversity was to throw another man forward. Terry Venables said of their time together at Leeds: ‘Whenever we were in trouble in a game, Brian would always say: “Let’s go 4–3–3.”’ When Kidd was not fit enough to travel to Portugal, he was replaced by Steve McClaren, who is much more defence-orientated. His inclination was to concentrate on organizing the back four, where he had mixed success. Three of England’s defenders – Gary Neville, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell – shone throughout, but as a unit the defence operated much too deep, and proved alarmingly fallible at set pieces. That Kidd was missed is beyond question.

Eriksson felt England had been unlucky, and said the difference between success and failure was infinitesimal. A debriefing went as follows:

Question: What more do England need to win a major tournament?

Eriksson: Very little really. A little bit of luck would be nice. I still think we can win the next World Cup.

Q: Will you be around to try in 2006?

Eriksson: If it is the wish of the English people, or the FA, I will leave, but I don’t think that is the case. When I called the players together for a meeting the day after we lost to Portugal, I talked about 2006, and said I was committed to taking them to Germany.

Q: Were mistakes made in selection?

Eriksson: Absolutely not. The 11 players I picked were the best available, and the team will not change much before 2006.

Q: Are new players needed to take the team forward?

Eriksson: No, definitely not. This generation is still young, and can play at the 2006 World Cup for sure, and most of them in 2008. How old is David Beckham? Twenty-nine. At 31 he should be even better. Steven Gerrard is still only 24. It’s too early to talk about a new generation. Some new players will come in, but not many. Jermain Defoe will get a chance. He’s quick and a goalscorer. And we’ll have a look at Chris Kirkland in goal – if he stays fit for once.

Q: Before the tournament, England’s midfield was regarded as a strong suit. What went wrong?

Eriksson: I don’t agree that it did go wrong. All of them could have played a bit better, but their discipline was good, and they will be in the squad – the team probably – for years to come. In the quarter-final their legs went because we were chasing the ball so much. Steven Gerrard had cramp, and couldn’t do the running any more, so we had to put another player on.

Q: Beckham had looked more tired than Gerrard. Was his condition a disappointment?

Eriksson: When we went to Sardinia to prepare, we found that four or five players needed to work on their fitness. He was one of them. He worked hard at it, but maybe it was a bit too late. We have seen Beckham better, there’s no doubt about that.

Q: Why did you not bring him off?

Eriksson: If I could have changed one more player in the quarter-final it would have been Beckham, but they were all tired, and I’d made my three substitutions. Remember, Portugal had two more days to recover between games, and at some stage we were always going to pay for that.

Q: Why did England sit back and invite pressure?

Eriksson: Why didn’t we attack? It was the same as the Brazil game in Shizuoka. I wanted us to attack, but to do it you have to have the ball. If you don’t have it, you have to defend, it’s as simple as that. I like to defend high up the pitch, not on our 18–yard line, but if you come up against a team who are gambling a bit, you have to defend deeper. Also, if you are tired, as we were, you make more mistakes and keep the ball less, and it becomes very difficult. Playing defensively was not a tactic, not something we set out to do.

Q: So it was not all down to bad luck, England needed to retain possession more?

Eriksson: We work on that every time we have a practice session. We concentrate on ball retention in the warm-up, and also as part of the main session. I think we are improving at it, but Portugal, technically, are the best team in Europe, just like two years ago, when Brazil were technically the best team in the world when we played them. When I use the word technically, I mean they are best at keeping the ball.

Q: Why was there such a gap between the midfield and the strikers?

Eriksson: There’s a dilemma there. You want to play the ball forward as early as possible, but to keep the team together as a unit you need to play three, four or five passes and then get it forward. That gives time for the defenders and midfield to move up. If you just kick the ball long, then the strikers make their runs and the rest of the team is not there with them, and when they lose possession, there is that gap there. That happened too often, and it’s something we’ll have to work on.

Q: You seemed to be more emotionally affected than you had been at the World Cup.

Eriksson: When we went to the World Cup, we weren’t sure that we could win it, but during the tournament we started to believe that it was possible. At Euro 2004 I was always convinced that we were one of the teams capable of winning it. We didn’t and I’m sorry. I’ve lost many football games in my career, but to go out like that, on penalties, was awful. The difference between winning and losing was like this (he held up a thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart). We are so nearly there.

Q: What are the positives to be taken from the tournament?

Eriksson: Sol Campbell was a rock. Incredible. He could have been the match winner against Portugal – should have been. Ashley Cole also had an extremely good tournament. And then there was Wayne Rooney. We knew about him in England beforehand, but he proved to be even better than we thought, and he is a big name now, not just in Europe, but around the world. I think he will be a star of the World Cup in 2006, the European Championship in 2008, and way beyond that. If you are that good at 18, then by the time you’re 22 or 24 you could be phenomenal. Wayne is already one of our jewels, and he will get better and better. It is not just about his goals, it’s about how he plays football and the thought behind it. He’s always a thought process ahead in the positions he takes up, and the way he links up our game is just fantastic from one so young. With him in the side, it’s so much easier for us to play out with the ball. You can target him and he’ll keep it or get fouled, in which case he has got us a free-kick. I’d expected him to play well, but not at that level.

Q: What would be your abiding memory of Euro 2004?

Eriksson: The last three minutes against France I guess (when England went from winning 1–0 to losing 2–1). That or the last penalty against Portugal. No, definitely the last three minutes against France. That was awful – complete madness.

True enough – it was ‘madness’ reminiscent of the circumstances in which he got the job in the first place …