Letter About Sven: Nish, Your Comments Requested

[See You Next Wednesday]

Hey Nish. There was this interesting letter at Footbal365 about Sven. I was wondering what your take on it was:

In The Defence Of Sven

I have found comments about Sven very much wide of the mark. The media have got it all wrong. England has been messing up at major championships well before Sven, so to blame him is a ludicrous. England has, compared to the world's superpowers, a terrible record in the major championship. Even middle-ranking nations like Czech Republic can claim a far better European championship record, as can Denmark.

England in the eight World Cups since 1966 before Sven, reached ONE semi-final, and that was at unquestionably the worst World Cup in history (1990). In the pre-Sven era England NEVER qualified from their group in the Euros outside of England. Since 1996 England have reached three World Cup quarter-finals.

You and others make it seem as if England have a divine right to championship success but as history shows this belief is wrong. Just because England invented the game and has the richest league in the world doesn't mean that it has a God-given right to be successful it. England has got to get behind the root cause of 40 years of failure and not pin the blame on Sven.

Sven came from the woods of Sweden to winning the Italian League; he is undoubtedly a class act. That isn't to say he is perfect but he is a very good manager and there is obviously a lot more to him than meets the eye.

Sven inherited a football culture that as the record suggests had embedded problems that was preventing success. England before Sven had a style of play that was totally incompatible with winning international tournaments. The players found it very difficult to adapt to the necessary systems and in some cases the coaches employed a system that has never going to work. The ball was always given away far too easily. England played with more heart than head. Also the players were technically inferior to their major league counterparts.

These problems have been reduced by Sven but he couldn't be expected to put right the mess that was English football in five years. Make absolutely no mistake, under Sven England have made huge strides, of course he has been helped by the fact that English players are exposed to foreign players and coaches in the Premiership and get a stable diet of European football that was denied to their predecessors. Despite this English players still lack the ability that other countries have in adapting to systems and keeping the ball. Although the gap is a lot smaller than it was and The English players have other attributes the other teams don't have.

I feel Sven was very close to getting England to playing a system that could have won the World Cup. Frank Lampard had 28 shots on goal, yet he didn't score one single goal. The system can't have been that bad if it gave one of the most lethal midfielders those chances but Lampard couldn't handle the pressure. Should Sven be blamed for that? I don't think so.

Sven tried to make England to play a more smarter game and England would have won the World Cup with the players had the mental strength. It wasn't very pretty but the there was factors in all the games why England weren't in top form and if Lampard scores the picture is radically different.

This brings me to the one obstacle Sven couldn't overcome and that was coping with the English public's desperation for success - this feeds through to the players and has created a unbearable mental burden for the players which up until now the players haven't been able to overcome. When do England start producing their best form in major championships? When they go down to ten men. This is because the pressure is off because if they lose with ten men there is a good excuse.

England hasn't got a winning mentality and they are now in that classic sporting phase of "knocking on the door" - this is quite common in teams/people with a history of failure. Getting through that door is a very painful process and the difficulty of the task shouldn't be underestimated and to "kill" Sven for failing to smash the door is most unfair, his reign has seen the hinges get a beating and it will be left to others to smash the door now. If England can build on Sven's work then sooner or later it will happen. However, it remains to see if McClaren has the necessary qualities to do the job well.

If England struggle to qualify for Euro 08 maybe you will appreciate Sven did a very good job at qualifying for three championships in a row without recourse to a play off and the job of getting 11 people trying to correct the failures of the last 40 years is actually a lot bigger than anybody in the media realises and that the fact not one single member of the press clapped Sven out of his last press conference was a disgrace.

Off course the biggest improvement on the England scene has been the banning orders for known hooligans. Well I think they should extend these to the Wags - they were an utter disgrace.
John Bull

[Nishlord]

('Wags' stands for 'Wives and Girlfriends', by the way, which are a selection of dull-witted women and Z-list celebrities who by rights should be pricing up tins of beans in Tesco, who hogged acres of newsprint)

I think Sven helped England to slay certain demons (if anyone had told us in 2001 that we would batter Germany 5-1 in Munich and overcome Argentina in a World Cup, we'd have laughed in his face), but tactically he ran out of steam ages ago. We'd take an early lead, sit in our own half for an hour, and then lose it.

I think he did as much as most managers could do with England, and no fucking way should Steve McClaren be his replacement. England are a million miles away from winning a major tournament, because football in this country is completely weighted towards the Premiership, which is rammed with foreigners, has no salary cap, and is boring as fuck.

The FA should have made Martin O'Neill an offer he couldn't refuse.

[smackaholic]

So, banning foreigners and capping salaries from your league would help english sahkah?

How so?

Perhaps it's just a matter of not being good/lucky enough to win the damn thing.

[Nishlord]

So, banning foreigners and capping salaries from your league would help english sahkah?

How so?

Because at the moment, there are too many English players of international standard who are paid ridiculous amounts of money to sit on the bench at Chelsea. I'm not against foreigners playing in England at all, but there's too many. The Premiership has been virtually locked up by Chelsea for as long as Roman Abramovich can dodge the Russian courts, and it's fucking boring.

[socal]

You're 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' with Premiereship. Players need to play to get better. But if you locked out the best players you'd end up with MLS.

[smackaholic]

So, banning foreigners and capping salaries from your league would help english sahkah?

How so?

Because at the moment, there are too many English players of international standard who are paid ridiculous amounts of money to sit on the bench at Chelsea. I'm not against foreigners playing in England at all, but there's too many. The Premiership has been virtually locked up by Chelsea for as long as Roman Abramovich can dodge the Russian courts, and it's fucking boring.

OK, fair enough. But, seems to me there ought to be an equal number of pine riding overpaid foreigners? Or do the foreigners actually posses a modicum of pride and chose to actually play elsewhere for less.

As for some bazillionaire thug ruining things, we have our share as well. Fortunately it doesn't seem to work as well with our sports.

[Nishlord]

There's been a general tilt in the balance of power to the advantage of club football over international, and a severe imbalance of funds - which mean that clubs like Chelsea can be $200m in debt and still snap up players left and right while other clubs in the same division are struggling to keep their heads above water. That might be business, but it sure as fuck ain't sporting.

[smackaholic]

I agree with evrything you say, but, I still don't see how this has disadvantaged england over other countries. Certainly there are sahkah whores the world over willing to sell out, or has england cornered that market, somehow.