We’re close enough to the English psyche to intimately understand their hopes and fears ahead of a tournament like the World Cup, but the M74 provides enough space for those of us based within a short distance of Celtic Park to have the kind of perspective that’s not possible for most fans immersed in the moment.
For long enough, England, along with Spain and France, were the perennial underachievers of European international football, which was dominated by “skilful” Italians and “efficient” Germans, while even the Dutch and Czechs have managed vastly more major final appearances than England.
France, then Spain, got the monkey off their backs, but England still relive their regular tournament nightmare, although this time it looks likely they will bow out before troubling any of their players in a penalty kick competition.
So cut England open and what bleeds out? After the game last night Danny Murphy on BBC Radio 5Live tried to offer objective resistance to the idea that England lacked passion from a tidal wave of calls, asking “Where is the Terry Butcher with a blood soaked bandage around his head?”, “Where is the crying Gascoigne?”
Fans often confuse sporting defeat with a lack of will to win. This notion was expressed last August when Celtic lost to Shakhter Karagandy, aided and abetted by an ITV commentator who proposed the notion during live broadcast. I’m pretty sure upwards of 95% of us have played the game at some level, but time seems to remove the memories of what it’s like to be losing in a team sport, and importantly, just how difficult it can be to reverse momentum.
Suggesting professional footballers don’t try during some of the most important games of their season is an embarrassing failure to think from another’s perspective.
Listening to the radio last night and again this morning, there was no dispute to the claim that what England needed was a manager who could lose his temper in the dressing room.
Even Murphy didn’t feel comfortable enough to take on the nation on this one, instead assuring listeners that Roy Hodgson was capable of losing his temper. This was mean to be supportive. It was surely viewed as such by many. This morning, Kevin Phillips trotted out the hoary old “lacked passion” line.
Is there any other field of human endeavour where losing control of your emotions is viewed as an attribute? Football managers exist in a highly competitive, technically exacting environment. At the top level they have to communicate subtle instructions to highly skilled professionals who have heard it all before from lippy managers. By the 30th rant they are all immune and it’s highly unlikely that intimidation led to an increase in performance first time out.
Despite this, managers are supposed to demonstrate a primitive human weakness to an audience who can often scarcely tell the difference between a football match and a pantomime.
We have to be different. We have to be cleverer; let the rest satisfy their need for an alpha-male role model – because make no mistake about it – this is what they’re really craving, while Celtic show uncompromising adherence to getting the best people for the job. On a side, note, can you imagine what appointing Roy Keane would have said about our strategy?
Roy Hodgson has done enough in the game to prove he’s a good manager but he’s more Euro-sophisticate than an archetypal alpha-male. Best of luck to him.
The Celtic Graves Society are having a fundraising raffle to generate funds. 50% will go towards their excellent work and 50% will go to the Northern Ireland Childrens’ Hospice, who looked after Wee Oscar recently. For the cost of a £5 raffle ticket, you can win a singed boot from Scott Brown or from Virgil van Dijk.
To buy your ticket go to Paypal and send £5 to donate@celticgraves.com
Don’t worry if you don’t have a Paypal account, you can still work through Paypal with a debit or credit card. Please add the phrase “Boots Raffle” to the Paypal subject line, and they have asked if you could alert them to which site you picked the message up from, so “CQN” will do.
Good luck
Visit the CQN Bookstore to get Tommy Gemmell to sign your personal copy of his book, All the Best.
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That should improve Chielini’s looks!
Listening to Savage and the other chump is depressing the hell out of me already..
Parkheadcumsalford
if commentators had never been invented, we’d probably all want Foreign to win…..well, mibby naw
Cadizzy
Honda’s engine was the only thing running highlight of the game was a the sneaky Sammi sliding tackle.
After he loses possession CSC
Howdy,Kojo….
Legend Of The Vegas Strip…
Looking Forward To The New Season..
With The Visionary Delia At The Helm..
Not Completely Convinced By The Appointment Of John Collins….
But At Least There Was Some Delay..
Before They Made The Announcement
To Give The Impression….
That They Were Considering Other Candidates…
Cannot Really See JC Having The Mentality To Be No.2…
For Any Length Of Time…..
But At Least Our New Management Duo….
Won’t Be Found Playing Cards In A Pub On Friday Evenings….
And Embarrassing The Club With Their Twitter Accounts….
Viva The Revolution..!
Mental bet tonight, 3 draws pays 50/1. A big pound coin on that.
how bad is a team that gets beat 2.1 off of this Italian team ….very poor so far …
My Dear 16Roads….
Your Friend…The Cambuslang Stalker..
Would Embarrass Even Leggoland2…
With His Astonishing Level Of ‘Whataboutery’….
In Defense Of The ‘Indefensible’…
One Questions How He Came To Form His Curious Alliegances….
Robert johnson Went To The Crossroads….
And Sold His Soul To The Devil….
In Return For His Finger-Pickin’ Virtuosity…
Did SFTB Do Likewise…..
To Preserve His Stunning Good-Looks?
Truly….He Is The ‘Third Cheek’…..
Of Yasmin Alibhai Brown’s Very Ugly Ers*…!
His Wee Irish Granny In Gweedore…
Must Shudder In Disbelief……
As She Puts Money In The Plate Of A Sunday…..
For The African Missions Now Reduced To Ashes….
With Their Faithful Congregants..
Pushing Up Daisies…
Slainte..
Viva Cristo Rey ..!
Mario firing blanks!
Mario B starting to annoy them. Heh heh!
Balottellli’s first touch very poor.
Looks Like Queen Liz…
Is Going To Get The Opportunity….
To Kiss Balotelli On The Cheek..!
C’Mon Enger-Lund..!
Has Savage got anyones name right yet??
Penalty must be
1st look….stone wall penalty
Gooooalllll
Wanted England to do a bit better especially if Forster was going to play but that appears not to have been going to happen one way or another so never mind.
We’ve watched England for long enough and we know their limitations as a side but they never see them.
I watched the first match on Slovak TV and was spared the commentators and then when I watched last night I heard and saw that Adrian guy everyone has been doing their nut at and quite frankly that sealed it for me.
I cannot support folk like that who think like that and who talk like that.
The indignation at a player not being sent off when Wellbeck made a worse challenge and stayed on the park was it for me.
Clive Tyldsley was the same guy who started making disparaging remarks about Glaswegians when some dude in a kilt came on the park to shake the hands of a Real Madrid player in 2002 at the CL final. He claimed a member of our fair city had ruined the final somehow when the man in question was a Spaniard in a kilt.
That for me summed and sums up the problem with the English media and that makes people more than reluctant to support their team.
The comments about too many foreigners appeared like a UKIP rally all too predictably and this also leaves me cold.
Do they not realize that the only reason anyone watches their league is FOR those foreign players who are the BEST players in each of their teams almost without exception?
This is not a purely English phenomenon, it is the island mentality so many in the UK suffer from. The difference in Scotland is we don’t get top class foreign players all that often because they head to England.
If you like poverty is forcing Scottish teams into relying on youth which is not a bad thing. The more young players come through the better. Coincidentally I don’t care where they come from, just that they are good. I still harbour hopes for the Twardziks and Atajic as well as the other player who are not Scots.
That was a penalty to Costa Rica all the way. Shocking decision.
But seeing the guy with the Scottish flag last night was a laugh.
1-0 Costa Rica
Ya dancer.
Mon the Costa Rica
Justice .
the huddle
he didn’t even get the country right….he called costa rica chile
penalty should have been given
good goal
Is Robbie Savage pished?
Brian Ruiiiiiiz!! Savage gutted!
It’s a penalty apparently.
Muy Rica…
Cadizzy
Definite penalty..but they might have missed so well played ,ref!
Gary’s face should be a picture!
Robbie Savage may be pished but he was always pish
Savage gutted and guttered
Boa noite fae Guanghzou
After some fine dining on otter penis in a duck bile consommé (or somethin very similar) just back in n goin to bed.
So just a big thanks for youse guys postin the link about oor wee Luan wi NFL. Fair brought a swelling to ma chest n’ a tear to ma eye.
The tap he’s wearin in the foto is one we gave him a few weeks back. Daft wee fecker wouldna stop huggin us all that day.
Mind you, he’ll be gettin the ” talk” when I get back – fancy no directly mentioning his CSC !!
My dear,dear,dear,friend…The Singing Detective
n..A Great Big ..Howdy -Do-Dee.. tae You..Pally!
Yes.. Ah am Bored.. Ur You no?
A Day Withoot Watching the Cel’ic.. is like…
A Day Withoot any…. Well… Purridge~( Ah Hate ..Purridge!…ed)( Me Tae!.. but.. a Wiz Stuck fur an Endin’!)
Ah said that Ah widnae Say any Mair aboot.. Mr. Collins’ Appointment.
So.. Ah wullnae!
But.. Ah wull Say This…aboot..
Ronny Dee.
Ronny, has Proven that He Kin Mak a Silk Purse ….oota a Pig’s Ear..
So Ah reckon he wullnae hae Much Trouble in Turnin’ this Celtic Team
intae a Complete Set o’ …Crocodile Luggage!!
Yes..He is That Good!
Nice Chatting Pally.. as Usual..
Kojo
Still,Laughin’
I got Costa Rica in the works draw, maybe got a chance :o)
Labels are for baked beans.
Was going to say the ref had cheated Costa Rica, which he had, and then my mate scored to say the same thing and then they scored. Deseveredly so.
Robbie savages Italy.
Dreadful decision by the ref blatant cheating if there was no goal line technology he wouldn’t have given that either hopefully they can hang on
Try the red button, you can listen to Radio 5 live commentary while watching the game instead of suffering Savage.
Thankfully, due to the nature of radio the commentators have to concentrate on relaying the action rather than providing their own opinions. Also, co-commentator is Jason Roberts, who I find generally talks sense.
scored=phoned
Costa Rica were denied the stonewaller to beat all stonewallers.
On a scale of 1 to Robbie Savage how good is Thierry Henry’s English?
Afternoon all.
Sonoferin, Jason Roberts is a Tim.
Rio, that young man was a delight to listen to.
Ref 50 yards behind play. . .still no excuse!
Shouldn’t get another game.
Rammy in the tunnel at half time.
Italians doing their nut.