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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My friends in Celtic,
If the EPL is as bad as some on here would have us believe, then why do many Publican’s in Scotland pay out inflated sums of money to screen it.
Ans : The same market forces that will ensure we eventually join it.
HH, always in Celtic.
PS : How bad are the Italians ?
Not long in.
Dear God, cringeworthy stuff from Linekar.
Who allowed that?
Even wee Chico never crossed that line.
Where’s ma ballot paper?
Billy Bhoy 05. You can take a holiday now.
Oi.Linekar. No!
Leave poor Gary alone.
He’s only being emotional!!
Rubby savarse slating the Italian keeper for the goal … Now slating both teams strikers for getting caught offside
How many goals did that spanner score in his career
Probably never been far enough up the park to get caught offside
Snake, it is all too petty in my opinion. More important matters to worry about.
16, a good post. However we shouldn’t forget the Muslim or Jewish or atheist victims of the Islamist fascists.
Maybe if We didn’t use western tax dollars to murder destroy de-educate thwart and frustrate so many Muslims around the world for the benefit of corporations they”d read more than one book
Italy out to 8/1
Italy’s movement’s poor.
Time to bring on Immobile.
TBJ
Mario Balotelli has been caught offside more than any other player in the World Cup
– so far
Useless Info CSC
Savage: “awful. No other word to describe it”
He’s just heard himself then.
Right that’s it, Costa Rica are my team in this WC from now on.
Love their passion
Paul67:
I reckon a lot of male managers could learn something from this woman…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Sundhage
She believes almost exclusively in positive criticism and berating her players is a nono.
When morale is low.. she sings for the team to get the positive vibes flowing again..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB10rJJX3dM
Excellent psychology :)
Margaret mcGill
The mot juste. Good game, intit?
Robbie is pals with NL….so he cannae be sic a bad bhoy…. :) braw
Loco mete a Immobile.
English And Scottish Football….
Was Destroyed By Allowing Too Many Foreign Players…
To Enter Our Leagues…
Inhibiting The Development…
Of Our Native Talent…..
In The Years Prior To The Heysel Disaster….
And The Subsequent Banning Of English Clubs From Europe For Several Years….
English..(And Scottish Clubs)….
Had Been Dominating The European Tournaments…..
With Aberdeen And Dundee United…
Doing Us Proud….
And Liverpool,Notts F. …And Even Aston V. Lifting The European Cup…
At That Time…Foreigners Were A Rarity….
With Ipswich Having A Couple Of Dutchmen….
And Spurs…A Couple Of Argies….
And That Was It…..
Most Successful Clubs Only Had Players From Our Enchanted Sceptred Isles…..
With A Backbone Of Canny Scots….
While The Teams Of Our Struggling Continental Competitors….
Were Packed Full Of Players From The Six Continents….
Heysel Gave The Evil Gnomes Of Zurich The Pretext To Ban English Clubs From Europe
And Dismantle British Domination Of Their Tournaments…..
While Conveniently Overlooking The Part Played By Juventus Fans…
In Provoking The Confrontation….
This Caused A Collective “Loss Of Confidence ” Within British Football…
And Our Teams No Longer Had The Guile & Swagger…..
Of Their Predecessors ….
By The Time English Clubs Re-Entered European Competition…..
The Leagues Were Overflowing With Foreigners…..
And It Took Several Years For English Clubs….
To Even Approach Their Previous Levels Of ‘Continental Domination’…
Ain’t That The Truth….Viginia ?
Well played the left back…
Italy and England going home?
Greenpinata
18:23 on 20 June, 2014
Ha ha…..seems Italians are not too keen to win this game. Klever stuff…………..
The Singing Detective Demands The Resignation Of Campbell Ogilvie
18:38 on
20 June, 2014
English And Scottish Football….
Was Destroyed By Allowing Too Many Foreign Players…
To Enter Our Leagues…
Inhibiting The Development…
Of Our Native Talent…..
————————————————
bang on!
“Argies”?
Away and boil your head.
Italy will gub Urus
Are Costa Rica the pot 4 team in this group?
This is really impressive from Costa Rica. Well deserved so far.
My friends in Celtic,
Interesting debate on-going. If I may put my tuppance worth in.
It is increasingly obvious the term “Muslim” is far to ambiguous for any meaningful discussion on violent Islamist extremism.
The various sects despise each other as much as other faiths ( And none ) and this is evident here in the UK, as the first prosecution takes place on Sunni and Shia conflict on our streets.
The whole subject is extremely complex and is a minefield, however that is not to say it shouldn’t be tackled or debated
HH, always in Celtic.
You know years ago when Scotland lost to Costa Rica in 1990 the headline in the Record was
Stop the world, we want to get off.
FRONT PAGE not back page.
How would it look if two countries with a combined population just over that of London and Rome put both of them out?
Celtic Quran News……….. :) braw
beatbhoy 18:30 on 20 June, 2014
Italy’s movement’s poor.
Time to bring on Immobile.
———————————–
Immodium surely
Three minutes left … Costa 1 Italy 0
Savage ” come on … Let’s have something to talk about ”
The guys a freakin moron
Anyway – just what did the Romans do for us ??
Struggling to hear what Robbie Savage is saying, he sounds like he has sucked all the air out of a helium balloon
Serie A ……..top striker left on bench.
Savage should be put in a trunk with Townsend and sent on a round the world trip by donkey…
Romans gave us clothes pegs…. :) braw
Actually excuse me, it’s around 2 million less but both the combined populations of Costa Rica and Uruguay are close to the populations of London and Rome.
Muy Rica….
Vaya con Dios Inglaterra!!
Never in doot… England oot…
Great by the Costa Ricans
So Costa Rica have knocked out costa fortune….braw
Aff oot
Starry
Whit hiv ye got against donkeys:)))))