Paso a Paso

We all like to discuss football and put forward our own personal ideas as to team selection. Ultimately it is a fairly futile and facile past time but it does no harm, and stimulates debate.

I think it is pretty clear how Capello is thinking in terms of the defence and the attack. The midfield remains somewhat unclear. This is primarily because we do to a certain extent have an embarrasment of riches, tempered by the fact that we do not have an out and out first class left sided player, and last but not least, we have not had the full choice of players to select from.

This squad does include Lampard and Gerrard and maybe we can see Capello’s thinking on this pairing in the forthcoming matches. This probably might not be the case as Gerrard could well be deployed on the left in the absence of Joe Cole.
Let’s have a quick look at what we have. I am assuming Lennon for Walcott is like for like, therefore we have Lampard and Gerrard for the central midfield position available as well as Barry and Carrick for the holding player. As there is no Joe Cole, Downing would be the left sided player though it does seem Gerrard may be deployed to the left. So the choices are 1). Lennon, Gerrard or Lampard, Barry or Carrick, Downing? 2). Or perhaps deploy Gerrard to the left again (as against Belarus) and have Lampard and Barry or Carrick with Lennon on the right? We will see.

Patrick Barclay in The Times gives us the benefit of his view that England could win the World Cup with his team selection.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay

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I have some general points to make. I do not agree with the defence, with his choice of Owen Hargreaves as the right back. I basically agree that Heskey and Rooney are the first choice forward line.
Patrick’s formation is strange,and the midfield quite curious. It is also quite an elderly team. Added to this I do not think it is a good idea to play players out of position. Horses for courses. A right back should be a right back not some one drafted in from another position. (Essien in the first half of the Champions League Final 2008 illustrates this).

More importantly, I do not think we should even be speculating about winning the World Cup. This blog advocates humility and reality. We are not even half way through our qualifying group and to use the old expression, “Two swallows do not a Summer make”. We should be perfectly clear that if we do qualify, then we must not start blowing our trumpet as we did in 2006, which was acually quite an appalling self-love fest with no basis or substance.

We should also realise that with every international you cannot expect to pick from the full complement of players. Some will be injured, others out of form. The essential element to international football, is to have a system and a pragmatic approach. In 2006, Owen and Rooney were unfit. Who knows what the situation will be in 2010? We just do not know.

As for actually winning the World Cup (assuming we qualify), there will be 31 other teams that will have their own theories. We must not forget either dodgy decisions either for or against, inspired performances by opposition teams or dogged resilience, and perhaps more importantly the quality of the top teams. We are not on the same par as Spain and judging by Euro 2008, perhaps a few other teams as well.

Where I do agree is that we have a very good manager and his disciplinarian ethics are what we do need. As for the weather in South Africa in 2010, this will do us no harm as it will be basically quite mild, but this will also be favourable to all other teams as well. It gets colder in Milan and Madrid in winter than in London. Most teams will not be confused by mild conditions and all will consider it advantageous!

So the checklist is, for our approach to the tournament…

1). All we can do is take one match at a time.
2). Humility, we are not the best in the World.
3). If we do qualify, no media led pre-tournment razzmatazz.
4). Remind ourselves of Capello’s CV, look at our own and decide who is best qualified to select a team.
5). Remember we have to qualify first.

For what it is worth I would suggest this is the general shape of Capello’s team should all be fit and available in an ideal universe.

James, Johnson, Terry, Ferdinand, A Cole, Walcott, Gerrard, Barry, Joe Cole, Rooney, Heskey.

That there are World Class players not in the team can only be a bonus. Also remember that football is no longer 11 a side, but 14 a side.

As a Spaniard would say, (as that is where the bar is set) Paso a Paso.

Tags: England Squad, Fabio Capello, Humility, Patrick Barclay, South Africa 2010, The Times