Revealed: how England could yet win Euro 2008

Euro 2008, we can win it. All we need to do is start a limited war in Europe. Not straightforward, I know, even in the Balkans. A lot could go wrong.

Fritz Fischer, a brilliant historian, identified this strategy as part of German policy under Kaiser Wilhelm II and Dr Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, his chancellor, in the build-up to the First World War. Sifting through thousands of government documents, Fischer constructed his theory that Germany had deliberately instigated the conflict as a way of increasing its power in Europe and had drafted plans to annex Belgium, parts of France and most of European Russia as a result. The aim, he said, was to fight a limited European war. Got away from them a bit there, didn't it?

Even so, having learnt from history, we are destined not to repeat it and some form of minor conflict - ticking off the Norwegians for a little local difficulty in Scandinavia, perhaps, or something temporarily nasty in the south, where Turkey and Greece are always looking to give somebody a right-hander - could be our making as we enter the Fabio Capello years.

Remember the Danes in 1992? Off the beach as a late substitute for the warring Yugoslavs, they did not look back. England could return from the Caribbean on Monday, pitch up at an Alpine training camp and crack on from there. This is the moment for English footballers to take the European stage by storm; we just have to devise a way of getting a foot through the door.

Over the next five days Capello will tinker and fine-tune his team for the last two friendly internationals of the season. Key players will be rested, novices promoted, as he attempts to prepare a squad capable of taking England to the 2010 World Cup. Too late. The time is now. Strike while the iron is hot.

Last week, the best club teams in Europe met in the Champions League final in Moscow and they were English. More significantly, despite the negativity that surrounds the staffing of the Barclays Premier League, roughly half of the starting line-ups (and both teams were almost at full strength) were made up of Englishmen, ten in total.

Now, without making this too simplistic, if these are the best teams in the Champions League, and the Champions League is the pinnacle of club football, and there are ten Englishmen playing, is that not the basis of a rather good international team? Paul Scholes, the Manchester United midfield player, no longer wants to participate and the England management will not attempt to change his mind until next season, so strip Capello's options to nine. Still, not a bad start on a rainy day, is it?

From the Champions League final, England could turn out a back four of Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Ashley Cole, a tight midfield three, right to left, of Owen Hargreaves, Michael Carrick and Frank Lampard, with Wayne Rooney as the striker and Joe Cole to his left. Only two positions would not be covered, goalkeeper and right-sided forward, and only a single, undeniably world-class player would be missing, Steven Gerrard, who could fit into the place to Rooney's right. David James would be the goalkeeper, as now.

Not half bad, is it? And this theoretical XI follows the oafishly simple logic that any player who can regularly make the team at United or Chelsea has to be worth his England place. It may be harsh on Gareth Barry, of Aston Villa, or David Bentley, of Blackburn Rovers, and many believe such strict demarcation is impractical. But at least it proves one thing: we are not in as much trouble as we think.

We are going to get very down over the next month or so. We are spectators at a leading international tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup and while that competition came at a time when few were shouting the odds for the domestic game - midway between English clubs lifting the European Cup in 1984 and 1999 - England's present failure comes at a peak moment for the leading clubs in the Premier League. We should be there; we know that.

At the training ground yesterday, Capello was asked about England's failure to qualify and said he did not comment on the past. If he did, however, the phrases “Jesus H. Christ”, “half the bloody European Cup team” and “muppet” would surely not be far behind. Even in the halcyon days of English domination in Europe, the number of home-produced players in the final did not hit double figures. Villa used nine when defeating Bayern Munich in 1982, but that was an exception. When Nottingham Forest beat SV Hamburg in 1980, six Englishmen started, three more than for Liverpool in Rome in 1984. Since then, the numbers have remained low: four Englishmen started for Manchester United in 1999, two for Liverpool in 2005.

So only in Moscow did the full horror of England's failure to qualify for next month's European Championship become apparent. The job done by Steve McClaren, the former head coach, looks increasingly poor in perspective, although he was not helped by an injury list more in keeping with the St Moritz Tobogganing Club than an international squad of footballers. McClaren was denied Terry, Ashley Cole and Hargreaves in Russia and Terry, Rooney and Ferdinand (who was suspended) against Croatia. Yet as England were in a position to succeed in both of those games and failed, the case for the defence can extend only so far.

The longstanding argument has been that any victory for English clubs in Europe is at the expense of, rather than to the advantage of, the national team, because of the numbers of foreign players. That was not true this year.

United is a roughly equal partnership, balancing Ferdinand with Nemanja Vidic, Brown with Patrice Evra, and every other English midfield and front player with Cristiano Ronaldo. But the English contingent is key at Chelsea: Terry at the back, Lampard in the middle, Joe Cole's creativity up front. The clubs most often cited when it is claimed that the Premier League is English by location only, Arsenal and Liverpool, were eliminated at the knockout stage. Anyway, take two Englishman from Liverpool, Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, and Rafael Benítez's team would not even be the best on Merseyside, let alone among the finest in Europe.

Another theory is that English players look good against each other but are found out beyond these shores. Again, it is outdated. It once was that home-grown players shone in the hurly-burly of the domestic league because they responded to the work ethic and, when technique let them down, simply chased 50 yards and made a crowd-pleasing blood-and-thunder tackle to get the ball back. This is no longer true. Nobody gets in the team at United or Chelsea simply by grafting hard. Lampard, Carrick, Rooney, Joe Cole and Hargreaves have a range of creative attributes to compete with any in Europe and while England have no equivalent of Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, neither do many others.

When Ronaldinho came up short for Brazil at the previous World Cup there was no production line of creative geniuses waiting to take his place. A handful of wizards exist at any given time and the rest look on in envy. That is where English football is now, wishing Ronaldo was ours, but Capello is still in charge of a collectively strong team with tournament-winning potential.

Oh, yes, we have heard all this before. Bentley made a similar statement on Monday and was met with sneers from jaded individuals for whom the dismal 2006 World Cup campaign was one false dawn too many. Yet it is an inescapable fact that while England had ten starters in the most prestigious match of the club season, France had three, Portugal two and no other country more than one. Those who mocked the FA when it set a last-four finish as the minimum requirement for Capello's World Cup campaign were misguided. How can we hope to get to the semi-finals of the World Cup when we have not even qualified for the European Championship, they chorus. The answer is simple: because not qualifying for Euro 2008 was the biggest cock-up since defeat by the United States in 1950, and Moscow was the proof.

There are some managers who are a nightmare to succeed - Sam Allardyce at Bolton Wanderers, for instance - because they have consistently punched above their weight for so many years. McClaren, by contrast, is a dream. He took the basis of the two best club teams in Europe and came third to Croatia and Russia. And while Slaven Bilic, the Croatia coach, may look on this stance as yet more arrogant English posturing, the fact remains, how many Croats were on the pitch in Moscow? None. How many Russians? None. How many Englishmen? Ten. What is wrong with this picture?

Capello will attempt to mix and match, as all managers do. He did not even pick Carrick in his 30 - although this has more to do with wires getting crossed on the medical side than any appraisal of his ability - and players such as Bentley and Dean Ashton would feel justifiably slighted to be overlooked merely because they play for less than fashionable clubs.

Yet even using the most simplistic criteria, Capello could right now pick a team that could hold their own against any in Europe; and if we could only get Archduke Ferdinand back in the motor, we could prove it.

原文地址:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article4016038.ece