Euros

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Spain 2012 or Brazil 1970. Image courtesy of PlayUp

There is nothing more satisfying in all sport than to proclaim a player or a team as the best ever. But the clamour for saying Spain 2012 is the best team the world of football has ever seen raises all sorts of issues. Not least, how do you compare teams and players from different generations?

In my memory, and I admit it goes back a bit now, no football team will ever compare with that of Brazil in 1970. Yes, you could say that this is my memory playing tricks and a reluctance on my part to shed the romantic images I carry from my youth. I shall grant you that.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

The European Championship once again raises the question of whether we are right in believing that sport, and in particular football, can reach out to society in the way nothing else can. The answer so far from the Euros is a chilling one: those of us who believe in the redemptive power of modern sport need to re-examine our beliefs – or at least ask if we do not need to prepare much better before we burden sport with this heavy load of transforming society.

The championship has been plagued by constant allegations of racism. They began even before the tournament began and have now led to UEFA charging Croatia with racist behaviour directed at Mario Balotelli (pictured below, in blue). It has raised the question: should UEFA have taken the competition to this part of the world?

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Campaigner Paul Elliott talks of the issue resurfacing in England and its impact at the Euros

Evening Standard

Hot topic: a steward picks up a banana, which was allegedly thrown at Mario Balotelli (inset) by Croatia supporters. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Paul Elliott has a chilling story of how he was regarded by one of his white team-mates when he played for Charlton back in the Eighties.

“We were at the team hotel,” recalls Elliott. “A player ordered scrambled eggs and beans. When the waiter came to me, the gentleman said to the waiter, ‘Get Paul some coon flakes.’”

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Lescott and Young celebrate England's opening goal of Euro 2012. Image courtesy of PlayUp

The English, who pride themselves on being a pragmatic nation, always able to assess things calmly and rationally, do lose their heads when it comes to football. And they are in great danger of doing so again at these Euros. Now this may seem a strange thing to say, but bear me out.

The nation goes into this competition in a more subdued frame of mind than at any time since Italia 1990, when English clubs were just getting back into European competition after a five year absence due to the awful events at Heysel. This time round it is not hooliganism, but problems in English football management which has meant going into an international competition under a manager who has been in charge for a mere six weeks. Even for a nation that almost boasts of muddling through, this is a bit much.

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Financial Times

English football likes to see itself as occupying a high moral plain. It also enjoys the praise sometimes lavished on the English game by footballers from more successful nations. At the beginning of the season Uwe Rosler, the former German international now managing Brentford, told me “In my four and a half years I learnt that English football is honest. In Germany sometimes you went down and tried to get a free kick. It was natural and we called it clever play. When I came to Manchester City I did it once or twice. The manager, Brian Horton, and the players came to me and said very clearly, ‘You do that not one more time’. There was a sense of justice in the group.”

Given that England, despite inventing the game, has won nothing since the 1966 World Cup this could be some solace. The fans can say: “We may not win, but we uphold the principles of fair play.” It also fits in with the general national attitude. Despite having had the greatest empire in the world, from which it derived vast benefits, this country – or at least its historians – likes to dwell on the benefits the empire brought to millions and how it was a moral force for the good. Both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan evoked such moral sentiments.

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