“Coming up, England's first training session of the week – and we'll be there live!” Slouched in front of the TV, nursing a cold and contemplating a late breakfast, this was not the 11am Sky Sports News bulletin I was hoping for. “Join us as we watch John Terry go for a jog, Gareth Barry wiggle his hips about, and Jack Rodwell struggle with a bib so bright you could probably see it from space”, the reporter failed to add, although he might as well have, for that was as far as the coverage was allowed to go. As (training) pitch-side pundit Ray Parlour described how Gabby Agbonlahor will be settling back in nicely because he's mates with Darren Bent, a metaphorical media blackout was instigated, almost certainly for the good of Queen and country.
Any further coverage would have been akin to giving away state secrets. Good decision, if you ask me. Heaven only knows what could've happened if some crafty Spanish agent had snuck his way past security to snaffle crucial bits of information. He'd no doubt have scurried back to his Aston Martin, where at the push of a button he could have turned the dashboard into an HD video link to Spanish HQ, ready to brief Vincente del Bosque on James Milner's off-the-pace performance during the shuttle runs.
Let's be honest, the good people at Sky were desperately trying to inject a little tension, or even some mild interest, into the build up to England's upcoming friendlies with Spain and Sweden. Unfortunately, most of the drama surrounding England these days only involves ball-kicking in a metaphorical sense. Over the last fortnight we've watched with increasing despair as Terrygate (Version 2.0) and Poppyfarce have stolen the back pages, with very little copy produced for the matches themselves.
But shouldn't we be excited by these games? Spain, as we're all too aware, pretty much represent the zenith of footballing capability right now – world and European champions, home to a gleaming, apparently never-ending well of talent. Sweden, meanwhile, have been a constant, peripheral presence during my England-following life. Via Tomas Brolin's pop-inspiring strike at Euro 92, an epic six-goal thriller in 1995's Umbro Cup, a heated 2-1 reverse in a Euro 2000 qualifier and an opening World Cup encounter in Saitama in 2002, the Swedes have been a thorn in England's side for two decades now. By all logic, we should be looking forward to this double-header. But we're not, are we?
Such is the quality and supposed all-importance of the both the Premier and Champion's Leagues, international football is no longer the showcase for global footballing talent that it used to be. Dredge up your earliest memories of international football and you'll recall the magisterial brilliance of the likes of Baggio, Romario, Batistuta, Milla and Hagi – semi-mythical sporting beasts of whom we were permitted a fleeting glimpse every few years. International football had all-star appeal, the joy of watching a fantasy team of the best club parts assembled into one globe-trotting whole. Not so any more. We can watch Lionel Messi, Wesley Sneijder, David Silva or Cristiano Ronaldo just about any night of the week we like, and we can do so as they face each other in the increasingly insular Champions League.
Put simply, international football used to be the place to see the crème de la crème, and now it isn't. But that shouldn't really be enough to take it to the point it finds itself at now, a point where some would rather wait patiently for the international break to be over than actually engage with the games taking place.
So what's the problem? Well for one thing those fabled thirty years of hurt have become forty-one – seven more tournaments have come and gone with nothing better than a few quarter finals to show for it. Now I'm not for a minute arguing that England have any kind of right to be progressing to the finals of major tournaments, but I think some of our frustration comes from the disproportionate success of the English club game. The Premier League is marketed, marketed and marketed some more as the best domestic competition in the world, beamed directly into homes across hundreds of countries worldwide while the national team – in terms of skill and in terms of success – has gotten left behind.
The players found within the English top flight are among the most talked about, debated, hated and loved in the world. Furthermore, off-field dalliances now take on an aura of soap opera scandal, perpetuated by a modern media hungry for fresh meat in an age where the internet can make, break and conclude a story before the ink is dry on the traditional morning edition. Rich investors from across the globe have taken charge of clubs, bringing with them, in no particular order, star players, huge transfer fees, brand promotion and uncertain debt levels, upping the spotlight wattage further still. Drama, personalities, money and entertainment – a loopy cocktail that the international game just can't compete with.
Maybe it's also something to do with the people we are meant to be supporting when England take to the field. Every sport – nay, every walk of life – has it's pantomime villains, but when the lines between loyalty, rivalry and straight-up hatred become blurred, it's not always easy to cheer on that centre-forward who on any other weekend you'd be calling a money-grabbing, morally-vacuous shitheap.
The rivalry and revulsion between club supporters is plastered everywhere, played up to and encouraged by Sky and broadcasters at large, broadcasters who have comparatively little invested in the national game anyway, where a failure every two or four years isn't quite as lucrative as a Premier League season, where each May triumph is guaranteed for someone. It's understandable that, having been fed all this, a young Arsenal supporter may find it tricky to rekindle their affection for Ashley Cole, and likewise cheering on Wayne Rooney becomes quite the awkward chore for the Liverpool diehard. But perhaps the most telling emotion is the one that a growing number of football fans feel towards the spectacle of international competition – indifference.
So international football has multitudinous obstacles to overcome. It is no longer a looking-glass through which we can leap into a wonderland of foreign footballing wizardry, and it carries the weight of repeated failure on it's bruised shoulders. It seems that for many England supporters the conclusion is simple: we're fated to disappoint, so why bother getting excited in the first place? Of course, this does tend to change when the tournaments actually come around – a World Cup is still a World Cup, no matter how jaded folk feel towards the preceding friendlies and all the associated nonsense and non-stories.
But it's clear to me that some repairs need to be carried out. Each season someone raises the idea that we'd be better off reshaping the international calender, and this may be a good place to start. Why not set aside fewer longer periods wherein the majority of qualifiers can take place? A qualification triple-header, for instance, with nine points riding on it would not only eradicate much of the tiresome club-versus-country bickering, but could inculcate a sort of 'mini tournament' atmosphere too. What's more, the subsequent comparative scarcity of international breaks may make those occasions when friendlies do occur all the more enticing – an intriguing novelty rather than just another Wednesday night substitution-fest when we could be watching Barcelona pummel Dynamo Chernobyl to a pulp instead.
While we're at it, why not bring back 'B' Internationals? Play them in the same week, and let the coaching teams examine potential squad members first hand without diluting the appeal of the main fixture. Or perhaps we could introduce a Three Lions Lottery, where members of the public pay a fiver and if they're picked out of a hat (by Sir Trevor Brooking) they get to come on and play stoppage time? What a great way to reconnect the England team with the people!
Ah, I went too far didn't I? Maybe it's this darned cold making me all hot-brained. Or maybe I'm just bored – it is an international week after all.
~ Matt
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