At New Low, British Soccer Must Re-Evaluate Tactics

It is widely believed that sometime in the 1960s, the sun did what it was never supposed to do: It finally set on the British Empire. I think not.Oh sure, the territorial possessions disappeared, but one aspect of the British imperial presence remained, and has grown much stronger: The sport of soccer. This is now an activity on which the sun shines perpetually — and never was the global reach of soccer more in evidence than during this past week.As the qualifying games for next year’s European championship came to an end (50 countries had been whittled down to 16 finalists), attention immediately switched to another set of qualifying games: those for the 2010 World Cup. The finals of that tournament will be staged in South Africa, and it was in Durban that a draw, involving 156 countries, was held to set the schedule for the preliminary games. All of which might leave the British glowing with pride at the worldwide triumph of their legacy, were it not for one awkward fact: British influence within soccer has dwindled to the point where it has become a national embarrassment. The British — particularly the English — are fond of reminding everyone that they invented soccer and “gave it to the world.” But their reward for this has been to see the sport slip from their grasp. Not that the English are ever in any mood to accept this. As each major tournament rolls around, a chorus of praise for its own team emanates from England, with confident predictions of victory. And just as regularly, the English team returns home having won nothing. Indeed, it has only ever won one major international tournament — the 1966 World Cup, which was staged in England.Last week, England’s futility hit a new low, when it took on Croatia, needing only a tie to ensure its presence in the 2008 European championship. The game was played in London at Wembley Stadium, the very cathedral of English soccer where England could expect massive support from most of a 90,000-strong crowd. As the game meant little to Croatia, which had already ensured its own qualification, success was virtually guaranteed.After only 14 minutes of play, Croatia was leading 2–0. England fought back to make it 2–2, but it was Croatia that, deservedly, got the winning goal. England had failed, for the first time since 1994, to even qualify for a major tournament.Actually this was a total British calamity. FIFA allows Britain to field separate English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish teams. And all of them failed to qualify. The day after the Wembley debacle, Steve McClaren, the coach of England, was fired. He had been on the job just 16 months. Certainly, some of his team selections and his tactical alignments had been questionable, even bizarre, but to see him as the main reason for England’s failure would be ridiculous.The decline of English soccer has been going on for decades, and the real reason for it was plain to see on the field at Wembley: Croatia was the better team, its players were technically superior, more comfortable, and confident in their ball control.In short, the English players are not good enough. A key to just why that should be was provided before the game by the England captain Steven Gerrard, who predicted that “We can cause Croatia lots of problems with aerial balls into the box.”This tactic of crosses into the opposing penalty area has been a staple of English soccer for as long as anyone can remember — indeed, it stands out as almost the only tactic employed by the English. Why the English persist with their aerial bombardments is inexplicable. It is a recipe for failure at the international level.The approach is crude in conception, crude in practice, even crude in its terminology. The team requires a tall forward to feed off those crosses: McClaren uses Peter Crouch, who at 6-feet-7-inches is well above average soccer height. His job is mainly to win the ball in the air and to head it down to other players, an ugly process for which the English have coined an ugly term: knockdowns.The main reason why David Beckham was a huge success in English soccer, but failed to shine in Spain, had to do with his ability to cross the ball with unusual accuracy. What was a talent of major importance in England was of less value in Spain, where the cross is used much less frequently.To the overuse of the cross can be added the English addiction with the long ball forward. Add the two together — the cross and the long ball — and you have a brief summary of the strength and weakness of English soccer. Both techniques are essentially attacking maneuvers, and the English game has never been accused of being defensive, or negative.But both techniques are also essentially coarse to the point of being witless. Neither can accurately be called a pass: The ball is played in the air toward a teammate, more with the hope of finding him than the certainty.Goal scoring thus becomes heavily reliant on something as crude as a knockdown following a cross, while the long ball forward eliminates midfield play, the area of the field where the game’s playmakers and creative players operate. Not surprisingly, England produces few such players these days (though an excellent example from the recent past is Trevor Brooking, who now — and this is surprising — occupies the post of director of football development for the English Football Association).He has not found his job easy going. Last year he complained, “At the moment I think the development of the game [in England] is at a standstill … Everything I’ve tried to do has been blocked.” His emphasis has been on trying to instill the importance of teaching technique and ball control in the younger age groups, to players between 5 and 11 years old.A long-term approach, obviously. For the moment, the English reliance on long balls and crosses is likely to continue. Will it be good enough to qualify England for the 2010 World Cup? Probably, though the draw in Durban hasn’t helped. Yet again, England finds itself in the same qualifying group … as Croatia.pgardner@nysun.com

At New Low, British Soccer Must Re-Evaluate Tactics

At New Low, British Soccer Must Re-Evaluate Tactics

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