BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each weekDANGEROUS LIAISONS
31/08/05
SVEN Goran Eriksson, to his outrage, remains subject to withering fire over what one may politely define as his romantic entanglements. Hardly had we been informed – quite wrongly, he insists – that he was trying to rekindle his association with flamboyant Faria when another ex-girlfriend shows up, alleging that she too is subject, much to her displeasure, to rekindling approaches. None of this would really cut much ice were Sven Goran doing a really effective job with England’s team, but of course he isn’t. Unlike Nelson, he didn’t triumph, quite the reverse, in Copenhagen.
But do let us get matters in perspective. Cast back your minds to 1990, and the eve of the World Cup finals in Italy, and you may remember a ferocious tabloid campaign against the then England manager, Bobby Robson, who in old age has become a saintly figure above all criticism. A campaign which mischievously exhumed a number of tales about his romantic exploits. Bobby was furious. So was the England captain Bryan Robson, similarly turned over for things which allegedly had happened more recently in, of all places, Aylesbury, after an England friendly there. The consequence was, quite irrationally and unfairly, a campaign in Italy of press silence.
Hostility towards the football reporters permeated the squad, though it was not they but what Ted Croker, when FA Secretary, nicknamed The Rotters, i.e., the news reporters, who were on the scent of scandal. The irony of it all was that in his naivety, Bobby should give free access to the novelist Pete Davies, who was writing a book about the World Cup, and could come and go in the team’s hotels as he liked. Predictably, all sorts of cats were let out of the bag, all sorts of confidences – as they would have been perceived by mere football reports – were broken. Bobby, at heart a simple fellow, was distressed, where he should have been alert.
Perhaps the whole silly attitude was summed up when, outside Bologna, just prior to the successful game against Belgium, a thoroughly reliable London journalist was talking to the little defender, Paul Parker. At which Paul Gascoigne, as silly as he was talented, threw a cup of water at them, out of the window of the team’s coach.
FAR more serious than Eriksson’s supposed peccadilloes is his rigid lack of imagination and good sense in his choices and formations.
Last Saturday, at Tottenham, Shaun Wright Phillips came on to the Chelsea right flank in blistering form, doing all the classical things a true winger should, taking on his man and beating him with skill and pace. All those things which David Beckham cannot do because he is essentially a one trick pony, possessed of a glorious right foot, both powerful and accurate, yet with none of the speed, swerve, capacity to get to the line, which the finest wingers have always had.
On the left flank, Eriksson is in the habit of deploying Joe Cole, a player I’ve always admired ever since I saw him playing for the West Ham youth team, yet who is by no stretch of the imagination a real winger. He should always be in the middle of the park, where his skill, flair and playmaking abilities can best flourish. True, left sided attackers are in pitifully short supply. Even Middlesbrough’s bright young Stewart Downing, whom many would like to see in the team, had a poor time of it last Sunday at home to Charlton. And Kieran Richardson, who did so well against the USA last summer in Chicago, will have a hard job winning a place in a Manchester United side awash with wingers and besides, however well he adapts himself to the left flank, he is essentially right footed.
IN a sport obsessed not merely by youth but by sheer childhood – clubs now co-opt eight and nine year olds – the late developer tends to be overlooked.
The present shining example of Livorno’s prolific striker, Cristiano Lucarelli, who duly began the new Italian season by scoring in a 2-1 home win over Lecce. Lucarelli will soon be 30, and though born in Livorno the Tuscan port he didn’t play for them till season 2003-04 when his 29 goals got them out of Serie B. Whereupon bizarrely Livorno let him go briefly to Torino with whom he had played for two seasons before at last joining his home town team. Luckily for Livorno they got him back before he could kick a ball for Torino and he rewarded them with no fewer than 24 Serie A goals which amazingly made him the League’s top scorer, ahead of all the multi millionaires with more fashionable clubs.
Previously he had made the Tour of Italy, beginning with a couple of seasons with Perugia in C1 and B: for just seven games. On to Cosenza and Padova in B then finally to Serie A with Atalanta in 1997. Next season saw him in Spain with Valencia, just a dozen games and a single goal. At Lecce, his victims last Sunday, he did rather better for a couple of seasons, with 27 goals in 59 games. Two Serie A seasons with Torino brought a mere 10 goals in 56 games: next came Livorno where the sea air of his native city seems to have inspired him. A remarkable saga.
Brian Glanville's latest book, FOOTBALL MEMORIES, published by Robson Books, is available in all good bookshops.
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