While England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 is hugely disappointing and essentially unforgiveable, spare a thought for what might have been. Four groups of four teams; the top two qualify for the quarter finals. Would England have qualified from any of the groups?
Given their recent performances and defeat to Russia it’s hard to see them beating anybody in Group D (defending champions Greece, Russia, Spain and Sweden).
If they have been in Group B they should have beaten the excruciatingly poor co-hosts Austria, as they did in the friendly a fortnight ago, but there would be no guarantees against Germany or Poland, while Croatia beat England twice in qualification.
Group C – world champions Italy, world runners-up France, perennial challengers Holland and perennial dark horses Romania – is so tough that the two teams who survive the group stages will have to be considered the favourites to lift the title.
Only Group A might have offered England a chance of making the quarter finals. The other hosts Switzerland are only a bit better than Austria, Turkey remain quite good at qualifying and quite bad at tournaments while the Czech Republic, though dangerous, are not the force they were a decade ago. Scolari’s Portugal would, of course, have wiped the floor with Gerrard, Lampard & Co. but at least (and for a change) it wouldn’t have been in the quarter finals.
Next summer we’ll be spared the hype and hot air – and just get to watch Europe’s best teams, playing hopefully great football. I hope Euro 2008 will prove to be half as good as my favourite tournament to date, Euro 2000. While Kevin Keegan’s England qualified for that tournament they went out in the group stages (despite beating the worst German team of my lifetime, they were embarrassed by Portugal and Romania), which meant fans of proper football could concentrate without distraction on the knockout stages of a great tournament of free-flowing, high-scoring football. (That said the best team in the tournament, Italy, were the dourest, and ultimately failed – having given a masterclass is catenaccio all the way to the 90th minute of the final, they conceded an injury time equaliser to France, who went on to prevail by a ‘Golden Goal’ in extra time.
The mental image of Our Boys being given the sort of good hiding we last experienced at Euro 88 (played 3, lost 3) is horrifying – I’m not sure the nation could cope with the sort of public waterworks we’d have had to endure as the Tarnished Generation’s last chance (both of securing a final massive playing contract as well as winning a trophy) slipped away.
Enjoy your 2008 summer holidays, boys: at least by having – effectively – three consecutive proper summer breaks the kids now emerging won’t have an excuse of fatigue if and when they board the plane to South Africa in the summer of 2010.
Interesting what you say about Italy in Euro 2000, being the dourest team. This is undeniable if we look at their knock out games, in particular the legendary 7-penalty miss match with Holland, where you feel the whole of Italy must have lit a candle to the Holy Virgin before the match, such were the chances that Holland spurned; and the Final itself where they proved once and for all the mantra: “a one-nil lead is never enough”.
But cast your mind back to the pool stages, and Italy played some wonderful stuff in that tournament. I particularly recall a spectacular Conte overhead kick in the game against Turkey and a beautifully worked goal against opponents I cannot recall, involving del Piero and I think a player called Fiore, who I think was from Udinese. My memory of the goal is naturally greater than my memory for stats.
And that tournament really did have some wonderful games, including Yugoslavia v Spain, Portugal v England, Slovakia against everyone and the drama of the two semis, Italy v Holland and Portugal v France. Real exhibition stuff, which is what these tournaments should be.