Published: 02nd July 2012
SPAIN delivered a football masterclass at Euro 2012 while England once again went out on penalties after some plucky but uninspiring performances.
SunSport panel
SAM ALLARDYCE
WEST HAM boss Big Sam’s career in football spans nearly 40 years. The long-time Bolton gaffer was a favourite for the England job when Sven Goran Eriksson quit, but Steve McClaren got the FA’s nod.
IAN WRIGHT
LONG-TIME Sun columnist and a free-scoring striker for Crystal Palace and Arsenal. He was Gunners’ record scorer with 185 goals until Thierry Henry took his crown, and won 33 caps for England.
GEORGE COHEN
WORLD CUP hero Cohen is a one-club legend. He played 459 games for Fulham and 30 for England — including the 1966 final. George Best once described him as “the best full-back I ever played against.”
SHAUN CUSTIS
OUR chief football writer is one of the most experienced England watchers around. He analysed every minute of the Three Lions’ performances during Euro 2012.
FRANK WARREN
HE may be a top boxing promoter, but Frank still knows his football. A lifelong Arsenal fan and an Emirates box holder, he knows a nice passing team when he sees one.
The Three Lions can take heart from being unbeaten but there is still so much to learn from the Spanish.
Here, we ask four footballing celebs — plus our own Shaun Custis! — how England can close the gap.
Q: WHAT MAKES SPAIN SO SPECIAL?
They grow stronger and do not have any fear. They believe in their ability, have a great spirit and play with excitement on their faces.
Spain also have a boss unafraid to make big substitutions at the right time.
Like Brazil, they are 11 extraordinary individuals who have put their egos aside to play together.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime combination of the perfect players, the perfect coach and the perfect system.
Spain have their priorities right. They’ve coached their kids the right way and their top clubs have trusted them enough to let them play.
All our best teams look abroad for players. That is why we are lagging behind so much.
Xavi and Andres Iniesta do the same job for Barcelona and the whole game revolves around them.
There is an incredible unshakable belief they can beat anyone, anytime.
But when you have won three tournaments in a row, what is there to worry about?
People accuse them of playing passes for the sake of it, but they take teams apart with the way the move it about.
You need to be super-human to run for 90 minutes without the ball.
Q: SHOULD WE TRY TO COPY THEM?
If you do not have an Iniesta or a Xavi, that makes it very difficult.
What we have got which is the same as Spain, is a very good goalkeeper and a very good back four.
Beyond that it is very difficult to play like them.
We need to improve the technical ability of our players — and then get them to play at pace because the tempo we play at is our greatest asset.
There’s no reason why we can’t play like Spain, but we prefer a quicker, more direct game because we think it might bore the public.
The German way is better for us. They combine ball retention with pace and power. Germany are bringing many talented players through their system and will only get better.
It’s a great shame because we do have some very good technical players — but there’s just not enough of them.
To play like Spain, every outfield player must be able to control the ball and pass it first time. The whole system collapses with even one weak link and England would struggle to find 11 like that.
Q: IS ENGLAND’S 4-4-2 NOW OBSOLETE?
It simply does not suit the modern game because, if you have two up front, it always leaves you short in midfield. Keeping possession is king and you cannot do that without controlling the midfield.
We must adapt to what the other nations are doing and be more flexible.
When Pirlo took England apart in the quarter-finals, we had no one who knew how to stop him.
Good teams work things out for themselves. They don’t rely on the manager to tell them where they should be standing.
All this 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 is a fallacy. Spain don’t have a formation. They just get in the right place at the right time.
Fabio Capello experimented with different formations so the players would adapt if required.
Hodgson hasn’t had time to do that yet but he must have other systems in the locker.
Roy Hodgson went down the tried-and-trusted route because he didn’t have time to work on anything different.
But now he has to look for a system that allows us to get players more mobile and less easy for opponents to snuff out the game, like the Italians did.
Q: DO WE NEED STRIKERS ANY MORE?
Likewise if David Villa had been fit, he would have started.
Top-class strikers can turn defeats into draws and draws into wins.
A world-class striker is worth his weight in gold.
Spain are technically unbelievable but there still has to be an end product.
All four Spanish goals in Sunday’s final were the result of dreadful defensive work.
The way Italy allowed the left-back to run from his own half and score from six yards was simply appalling.
Strikers have always been the heroes of English football. We love them and we don’t want to confine them to the dole queue.
Spain are unique because they have so many talented midfielders.
I know Spain won the Euros without a recognised No 9 but I’m sure David Villa would have played if he had been fit.
And guys like Cesc Fabregas and David Silva are always good for a few goals, so it’s not as if the Spanish played with no forwards.
WHAT WOULD YOUR 1ST CHOICE TEAM BE?
He will have done his homework and known who to pick for each game from what he had available and I would not argue with that.
I just wish Frank Lampard had been available as I would have put him in a central-midfield three with Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker.
That’s closer to the kind of set-up we’re used to in the Premier League.
But the four front guys would all be flexible enough to inter-change, making us much less predictable than we were in these Euros.
This Euros came too soon for him but he will be so keen to get going on the next campaign he’ll be biting his fingernails down to the bone.
None of England’s top guys have performed at the last three major championships so I expect there will quite a few changes, with the emphasis on youth.
Lamps, 34, is still good enough. As 33-year-old Andrea Pirlo proved with Italy, age is irrelevant.
A five-man midfield including two fast wingers supporting Rooney would make England more threatening.
Obviously Hodgson has got to look at younger players, but I’d certainly keep John Terry because he was our best player in Poland and Ukraine.
I’d probably go for Hart; Richards, Lescott, Terry, Cole; Wilshere, Gerrard, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Rooney, Carroll, Welbeck.
WHICH ENGLAND STAR WOULD GET IN SPAIN SIDE?
Joe Hart is a superb young goalkeeper. Glen Johnson was terrific and John Terry and Joleon Lescott made a great partnership in the middle. Ashley Cole was as good as always.
At a push, Glen Johnson might get in. The way he gets forward from right-back wouldn’t look out of place in Spain’s team and he’s a better defender than Alvaro Arbeloa.
I don’t think any of the out-field players are better. We talk about Wayne Rooney being world-class but he hasn’t done anything at a major international tournament for years.
Skipper Gerrard made the Team of the Tournament but would he really get in ahead of Xabi Alonso? Probably not.
Maybe a fully fit Jack Wilshere might have a chance of getting into Spain’s squad, but he’d be up against Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Fabregas, Alonso and Silva so probably wouldn’t make their team.
Joe Hart is the best keeper we’ve had for a long time, but I still don’t think he’s as good as Iker Casillas.
WHAT’S BIGGEST LESSON ENGLAND CAN LEARN?
We need to see sport as an education — not just a pastime.
You can never realise the full potential of a youngster unless you can get the time to work with them on a daily basis.
The way that we surrendered possession against Italy was embarrassing.
Glenn Hoddle was unpopular as England boss because he demanded technical excellence.
But that’s exactly what we need right now — even if it embarrasses some of the players.
Thank God that the FA academy is finally in place and we can start to tackle the errors which have undermined our game.
But it annoys me that only now they are starting to address issues which were being discussed 60 years ago.
England keep hold of the ball in their own half but the trick is not to give it away over the halfway line.
And sticking rigidly to 4-4-2 will not help England make progress.
The FA have been talking about over-hauling the way kids are brought through for years, yet nothing ever seems to change.
I don’t know if a winter break would help but England were dreadful in the second half of just about every game, always hanging on rather than looking to finish strongly.
HOW FAR WILL WE GO IN THE WORLD CUP?
But so much depends on the draw and the players you have available.
We never seem to have all our top players fit for the big occasion.
Look at this tournament when we were missing Lampard and Jack Wilshere, who could have been a big impact player.
I got stick for getting excited when we beat Sweden and Ukraine but I’m an England fan and there’s nothing wrong with being optimistic.
But Italy was a reality check and showed us just how far we are behind the best in the world.
And that won’t improve with so few Englishmen playing for the top Premier League teams.
How on earth England are sixth in the FIFA rankings is beyond me. We were the eighth best team in the Euros and that doesn’t take into account the likes of Brazil and Argentina.
I’m 72 and sad to say we won’t win another World Cup in my lifetime.
Once there, it is hard to see them getting past the quarters.
There aren’t enough good young players coming through for the squad to be competitive in Brazil.
But England have to do much, much better to make any kind of impact.
I do believe we will qualify without too many problems because that’s what we generally do.
But I fear that even the quarter-finals could be beyond us.
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