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The wonder of Barcelona should not make us think that the English game is back to the dark days of the 80’s and 90’s when route one football prevailed. That is what Wimbledon talked about and why they so lauded the so-called box-to-box players. The bewitching play of Barcelona often leads us to believe that the English game is in a worse state than it is.

Barcelona's Lionel Messi (left) leaves Chelsea's Mikel (floor) behind as they battle for the ball, image courtesy of PlayUp

These were more like runners than footballers, and would charge from their penalty box to that of the opposition hoping to connect their head with a long ball that had been floated over most of the field. The idea was that in the mayhem created by all these players trying to head the ball, there would be so much confusion that they might score a goal. Once that was done it was back to their own penalty box, kick every dangerous ball to row 52 and in the end emerge one-nil winners.

True, Chelsea’s defeat of Barcelona last week was a classic case of playing on the counter in a way that seemed to be taken from the Brian Clough school of football, one which he used to such effect when leading Nottingham Forest to victories in the 70s and 80s. Indeed, Chelsea were for such long periods pinned not only in their own half but in their own box that, but for the advertisements round the ground and the majority of the crowd wearing Chelsea colours, it would have been hard to believe they were at home.

Didier Drogba may have to be up to his old tricks as he dived at the merest touch, but he provided the quote of the season when he said that he was so far away from the Barcelona goal he felt he was playing nearer the M25. As the English commentators said with no little pride Chelsea, were playing with guts, determination and all that old bulldog spirit that has made the English nation great.

But if these are the virtues the English game has historically used to compensate for the fact that its players are often technically inferior to its opponents, that does not mean the game as played in this country now totally lacks skill. Barcelona totally outclassed Chelsea but then Barcelona would outclass any team in the world. However, since the 80’s the skill level in English football has increased.

The best proof of that came when on Saturday when I went to the Valley and saw Charlton win the League One title. Now this was a match that used to be in pre-Premiership days between the top team in the old third division and one of the bottom four. Back then a match like this would have seen almost 90 minutes of head tennis. The midfield would have been bypassed, long balls would have been played, there would have been rigorous zonal marking and defenders would not have dared pass the ball in their penalty box. They would have been told the moment you get the ball send it into the stands. No fancy Dan passing, to quote Vinnie Jones, that way lay trouble.

But while Charlton versus Wycombe Wanders is a world removed from Barcelona, what was pleasing to watch is how much of the football was played on the deck. There was also some fancy dan passing and what is more, even defenders in the box were not afraid to use possession to build up attacks from the back. I remember back in the 80’s a Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper using the long ball from well outside his penalty box to start an attack. Now both goalkeepers actually passed the ball to their defenders to start an attack.

And, just as interestingly, the Charlton crowd did not bay for their players to hoof the ball out of defence. The long ball era was the work of football experts who thought this was the way to beat superior foreign, generally Latin skill. But it was also aided by English crowds who grew restless with too much passing. I can remember many a match where the crowds would scream at their players for dwelling on the ball. At Charlton I did not see any evidence of that and that is a welcome change.

English football has a long way to go before it catches up with the exquisite passing game of Barcelona – it may never do. But the gap must not make us feel the game here has not changed and changed for the better.

Follow Mihir on Twitter @mihirbose

The Sunday Telegraph: To the Editor

SIR – When British athletes win Gold for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics, God Save the Queen will play to celebrate. However, when it is England who take to the sporting field to play rugby or football, they should be heralded by an English anthem for an English team, just as Flower of Scotland and Land of My Fathers are sung as Scottish and Welsh anthems.

The lack of an English national anthem can lead to complaints about a lack of fair play, while treating the British national anthem as if it belongs to England undermines an equal claim to British identity and the allegiance of other nations within the United Kingdom.

An English anthem would show symbolically that pride in our national identities is no barrier to being proud to be British too. We would like to see an English anthem used when England play France in their first game in this summer’s Euro 2012 football tournament.

This St George’s Day is an ideal moment for the proud and inclusive majority in our country to speak up. It would strengthen the case that the fringe extremists of the English Defence League, who would tear England apart, have no real claim to St George’s flag.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

This season is turning out to be one in which football has had to look hard at itself. The critical question: is the game capable of examining itself? And if so, would changing things make this a defining football season?

I am afraid I have grave doubts.

The reaction to Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba’s collapse at White Hart Lane showed that the game has a soul, but much else has happened which indicates that football has a lot to do, both on and off the field, before it can lay any claim to be a moral sport watched and followed by decent people. The two semi-finals in the FA Cup last weekend proved the need for change yet again.

So, just before the first semi-final between Liverpool and Everton, which the former eventually won 2-1, Reds striker Luis Suarez was much quoted in the media. What was striking was the relish with which he went back to one of the most infamous moments of the 2010 World Cup. The quarter-final tie between Uruguay and Ghana.

Let us recall that moment: it is the last minute of the match and Suarez handles the ball to prevent an almost certain Ghanaian goal. He knows he will be dismissed for his actions and Ghana will be awarded a penalty. But should Ghana miss this, it will offer a lifeline to his team. Ghana duly miss and Suarez becomes a Uruguayan hero as his team advance into the semi-finals.

At the time when it happened it shocked many in South Africa, particularly those in the country brought up on rugby and who are unfamiliar with football’s ways. As Ali Bacher, the man who ran South African cricket for many decades, told me: “In rugby that would be a penalty try, an immediate five points with the other team having a chance for a conversion which, if successful, would mean two more points. Football’s penalty award encourages offenders to commit fouls knowing they stand a good chance of getting away with it. No respectable game should allow such a thing to happen.”

Goalmouth scramble between Tottenham and Chelsea. Image courtesy of Insideworldfootball.biz

But while the punishment meted out to Suarez was as per the laws of the game you would think, would you not, that it was an incident he would not want to talk about. If he did, surely he would express some contrition. However, his words on the eve of the semi-final, widely reported in the media, are worth repeating.

“The sacrifice I made was because it was so important for Uruguay to make the semi-finals. Now I want to win this semi-final.” And then asked if he would repeat it for Liverpool he said: “It will take an enormous effort but I am dedicated to the team. If I am obliged to stop a ball in the last minute and we win, then I will repeat the [World Cup] action. Success for Liverpool is more important to me than anything else. But I do hope there will be no drama like this for me.”

Now we all know the problems Suarez has had in relation to Manchester United’s black French international defender Patrice Evra, and how part of his explanation for what happened is that he was misunderstood and his words mistranslated. I do not know if this is the case here, but use of words like “sacrifice” and “obliged” suggest he does not see anything morally wrong in what he did. His ‘obligation’ was to cheat to ensure a win, and his ’sacrifice’ was to be sent off for cheating. His first loyalty was to ensure a win, by any and every means, rather than abiding by rules and being a good sportsman. And it is the absence of this moral dimension that is most worrying for football.

Suarez- Image Courtesy of Insideworldfootball.biz

Football has always claimed to be a highly moral game, but from watching the way the game is played now, it is clear that the players do not feel morality comes into it. Indeed, it could be argued (as Bacher did) that the laws of the game actually encourage cynical, unsportsmanlike behaviour. The second FA Cup semi-final between Tottenham and Chelsea provided further examples of that. And one of them was a curious reversal of what happened in the World Cup two years ago.

This was when Petr Cech, the Chelsea goalkeeper, brought down Emmanuel Adebayor in the box. Tottenham nevertheless scored, and because of this the referee [Martin Atkinson] did not take any action against the Czech Republic number-one. Had the goal not gone in Cech would have been sent off and Tottenham awarded a penalty. Later Harry Redknapp, the beleaguered Tottenham manager, said he would have preferred that, his reasoning being Tottenham would have scored from the penalty and the absence of Chelsea’s best goalkeeper for the rest of the match would have had a more dramatic impact on the game, which Chelsea won 5-1. It is, of course, asking too much for a change in the law to allow both the goal to stand and the offender in such circumstances to be sent off. The referee was within the laws when he acted as he did.

But where football does not help encourage moral behaviour is by refusing to allow referees access to technology. This resulted in the referee allowing Chelsea’s second goal (pictured above) to stand despite the fact that it had not crossed the line. This has now renewed the call for goal-line technology and I can only repeat what I have often said: that the longer football continues to shun technology, the greater the danger of bringing the game into disrepute as it did during this semi-final.

What is also very interesting to note is what the 85,000-plus crowd at Wembley on Sunday was told about the second goal. Wembley has giant screens on which incidents of the match are replayed. Indeed at half-time there is a highlights show to remind us of what we may have missed. However, there was no footage of this incident shown.

Clearly because the footage would have revealed that the ball had not crossed the line and Wembley officials did not want to take any chances with the [negative] reaction of the Spurs end. All very reminiscent of what happened during the 2006 World Cup final when the crowd at the Berlin Olympic stadium was not told that France’s Zinedine Zidane had been sent off for head-butting Marco Materazzi of Italy (pictured below).

In other words, football crowds cannot be expected to act as mature human beings. So is it any surprise that some of them behave like hooligans?

This was again demonstrated before the second semi-final when a section of the Chelsea crowd refused to observe the minute’s silence in memory of the Hillsborough dead and the Italian player, Piermario Morosini, who died so tragically after collapsing during a Serie B game on Saturday (April 14). Yes, the club has since apologised, and it was a minority, but from where I was at the Chelsea end it looked like a very sizeable minority. In any event even if it was only one supporter refusing the minute’s silence that would be one too many. In the end, the referee had to cut short the silence to 30 seconds.

Zidane heatbutting Materazzi. Image courtesy of Insideworldfootball.biz

In the past when football has had hooligan and racist problems it has always claimed it was a minority. I felt then that this was a cop-out and it is so now as well. The point is that the game has to take a moral stance with regard to behaviour both on and off the field. And it has to make sure officials can use technology and do not emerge after the match with egg on their faces. Until that happens football’s good name will be dragged through the mud.

Football’s popularity makes it the greatest world game – but in this it could learn lessons from other team sports.

The tragedy is that I see no leaders in the game prepared to listen, let alone act.

Follow Mihir on Twitter.

Insideworldfootbal.biz

Ever since Fabrice Muamba collapsed in the first half of the FA Cup match against Tottenham at White Hart Lane, not a single football event has gone by without some sympathy being expressed for the stricken Bolton player. This has included fans and players, even players in countries far removed from England, wearing T-shirts wishing Muamba a speedy recovery. His progress in hospital has been monitored with the sort of attention that was once accorded to members of the royal family and would nowadays be given to high profile pop stars.

I can understand why this would be seen as mawkishness by some. And why it would go down badly in a country which has no tradition of loud lamentation to mark distress. Different countries have very different ways of showing distress and one tradition is not necessarily superior to another. But, given the historic traditions of this country, it is not surprising that some commentators felt the reaction to what happened to Muamba went well over the top. Some of them have gone as far as to say it is synthetic, perhaps even a little manufactured. The view here is that this is a bit like football’s equivalent of how the country reacted to Princess Diana’s death. This view has been particularly expressed by those who do not normally comment on sport or even, perhaps, have much interest in it.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

Balotelli is not the only footballer whose antics make you think there is much wrong with the game. Apart from his well publicised problems with his manager, the Manchester City player also managed to set fire to his house after a fireworks display in his bathroom. It is just as well not all footballers are like Balotelli. Not that the inane way they often answer questions on television give you much confidence that they think before they speak. Or that they think at all.

But the question is not whether footballers are stupid. The more relevant question is why footballers, and particularly those at the highest level, always give the impression that they are celebrities who are gracing the world with their presence? My recent experience of top rugby players suggest, that in this regard, football has a lot to learn.

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