BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD
11/06/08
The FA have been well and truly hoist with their own petard; and serve them right. All that grovelling to the ineffable Jack Warner of Trinidad, the decision to send an England squad all that way to the Caribbean to play a friendly with Trinidad and Tobago, in the hope that the outrageous Warner would throw CONCACAF behind the English World Cup bid, could well have come to nothing.
This because as we know England and Capello used seven substitutes rather than the permitted by FIFA six, which invalidates the game as an international. No use it seemed protesting as the FA have done to FIFA that Jack Warner himself, as the CONCACAF man, authorised the extra substitute; FIFA insist that they know nothing of this.
What sticks in the craw is the mindless and grovelling way newspapers here have referred to Warner as a serious power broker, a man of influence within FIFA. Yes, he has long had that, but as the celebrated investigator of sporting corruption, Andrew Jennings, has made all too horribly plain in his devastating book Foul! This is only because Warner, with his 35 CONCACAF votes, can potentially swing things in the councils of FIFA. And boy, has he ever done so, obtaining from Sepp Blatter over the years all kinds of costly concessions; running an Under-17 World Tournament for which he received for his association a huge FIFA subsidy, only to go back (despite that sum covering the whole grant for CONCACAF that year) for a hefty loan. Which they allowed him not to repay.
After the 2006 World Cup there was the double scandal. Of the ticket scam operated by his son, who was eventually commanded by FIFA to repay vast amounts (we don’t know whether the whole sum was repaid.) And infuriating the gallant Trinidad and Tobago team which had acquitted itself so bravely in Germany by initially failing to pay their promised salaries and bonuses.
There is, I suppose you could say, an old Jewish dictum: If you want the devil, you have to go down to hell for him.” And after all, Neville Chamberlain did go to Munich in 1938, waving on his return “a piece of paper” and bleating “It is peace in our time.” Oh, no, it wasn’t! Plus there could be no guarantee that even with the “influential” help of Jack Warner, England would get the 2018 Cup. And even were they to do so, would this be a price worth paying? Meanwhile, let’s all have a jolly good laugh.
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In the event, of course, FIFA relented, allowed the meaningless match to be classified official, and caps were duly if cheaply awarded. It was strange, meanwhile, to learn that Capello, who now of course has two goalkeeping coaches, Franco Tancredi and Ray Clemence, in his vast entourage, believed that Joe Hart constituted a valid successor in the England goal to David James. This though on the rare occasions when Hart was put under any kind of pressure, he looked woefully nervous and inadequate. These came in quick succession when Trinidad took a couple of corners from the right. Hart’s attempts to deal with them were feeble in the extreme; he fumbled badly on each occasion.
I am still convinced that the ideal England goalkeeper is Ben Foster, who, even after months out of action through severe injury, came back at a moment’s notice into the Manchester United goal at Derby and made a couple of superb late saves to preserve his team’s narrow 1-0 victory. One waits to see what will happen to him in the coming season, since Edwin Van der Sar is still capable if sometimes a little erratically installed as United’s keeper.
As for David James, his penchant for doing the rash and reckless thing, rushing needlessly outside his penalty area, was all too clearly and painfully seen again in Port of Spain, when he belted out of the box to crash into poor Kenwyne Jones, when Rio Ferdinand was perfectly placed to clear. The consequence being that Jones damaged ligaments, left the field, taking with him his team’s only major threat of goals, and could be denied to Sunderland, his club, for a long time to come. Calamity James indeed, though this time the calamity was suffered by an opponent.
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It surprised me that David Jones, Cardiff City’s manager, advised his splendidly precocious 17-year-old midfielder, Aaron Ramsey, to join Manchester United, even though United are reportedly prepared to leave him with Cardiff next season. Had Ramsey gone to Old Trafford, even in a year’s time, it is all too probable that his shining talents, his ball skills, his cool, unflurried temperament, would languish on the bench.
Everton and Arsenal, by contrast, are seemingly ready to put him straight into the first team pool. With rather more chance, I suspect, of a regular first team place at Goodison Park. Ultimately though, Ramsey opted to join Arsenal.
By the same token, returning to Old Trafford, where his registration is held, doesn’t seem a good move to me for the excellent Hull City striker, Frazier Campbell, like Ramsey, a week earlier at Wembley, where the Cup Final was succeeded by the senior play off, a salient figure. I cannot image Hull doing much at all in attack without him, whatever the amazing longevity of the 39-year-old Dean Windass. And if Windass’ superb right-footed volley won that promotion for Hull, it was Campbell who so elegantly gave him the ball. Whisper it not, though, but Windass was criminally unmarked. It is now said that United are, in fact, prepared to sell Campbell to Hull for £5 million. In which case, I’d advise Hull to bite their arm off. After all, they are now £60 million to the good.
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It surprised me to see the Inter President, Massimo Moratti, naively referred to in a daily paper as a dominating figure. Not quite how he is seen I fancy, by the club’s ever impatient fans. Now looking forward to even bigger and better things under Jose (“I’m not special”) Mourinho.
Moratti, to me, has always appeared as what the Italians call figlio di papa, Daddy’s boy. The son of the egregious Angelo Moratti, alias il gran petrolifero, the great oil millionaire. Involved up to the hilt in the actual or attempted bribing of European Cup referees during the 1960s.
It was only a few years ago that those fans were bitterly critical of Massimo, as Inter failed time and again to regain the scudetto. So much so that the poor, tormented fellow actually appointed Gicainto Facchetti, once the storming, scoring Inter and Italy left back, as the President, so that he himself could hide behind him from the flak; though the idea that Giacinto was in any position to bank roll the club was risible. Get it right, chaps!
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Giovani Dos Santos, the brilliant young Mexican attacker who is joining Spurs from Barcelona for what may ultimately come to £6 million is, one reads, the son of none other than Zizinho. The immensely gifted Brazilian international inside right, who made up that incredible inside forward trio in the 1950 World Cup with Ademir and Jair. They tore the defences of Sweden, 7-1, and Spain, 6-1, to pieces in the final pool, though Uruguay ran out winners in the final game (not the Final; there was none.) But just a minute. Dos Santis is 19. How old, then, could Zizinho himself have been, when the boy was born? Working it out. I made him all of 67. Quite a story. Quite a man.
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Milan want Andrei Shevchenko back. Chelsea don’t want to let him go. So Signor Adriano Galliani, Silvio Berlusconi’s chief henchman at Milan, informs us. Which surely demands a John McEnroe cry of, “You cannot be serious!”
For all his former splendour, Shevchenko at Stamford Bridge has been a hugely ineffectual flop. This even though, near the end of the season, he did head a goal in his old far post style and did clear off the line. But he allegedly cost Chelsea some £30 million and his wages are vast. Why Milan want him. Lord alone knows. But it seems likely that the billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich himself wants to keep Shevchenko at Chelsea, as some kind of mascot. Logic goes out of the window; at both clubs.
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