Originally published @ 5:12 am, Sat 5th Dec 2009
So it seems, England have been drawn into the "Group of Life" for next year’s World Cup. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/04/england-world-cup-2010 The life and death analogies have stemmed from Bill Shankley's famous remarks.
Groups have got much easier since the number of competing countries doubled, so whatever the hype, we should remember that the group stages are invariably dull and that it’s always the quarter-finals or semi-finals that are England’s problem in the World Cup (taking Bobby Charlton off too early, Keegan missing an open goal from 6 yards after 6 weeks injury, Maradona’s handball, losing to Germany on penalties, losing to Argentina on penalties after Beckham was sent off, losing to Brazil cos Beckham jumped out of a tackle, and losing to Portugal on penalties after Rooney was sent off). “Thirty years of hurt” was not written cos it rhymed with “3 lions on the shirt”.
After each of these defeats comes a realisation that the high wages paid to Premiership footballers for their skills has not stopped the ball bouncing off English players every time it’s passed to them. And the suspicion remains that we still won’t be able to get Gerrard and Lampard to play together, that Lampard may again combine most shots attempted with lowest rate of success and that we’re still short of left-footed players.
So I look forward to less hype this time around – as if.
It is a shame that the life and death analogies are still drawn to football, not least cos of the effigies of Beckham hung from street lamps in 1990 and the murder of a Latin American footballer after he scored an own goal that led to the elimination of his team from the 1994 competition ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar ).
Algeria are in England’s group, and were one of the last nations to qualify, having needed a reply of the play-offs against Egypt. I was in Egypt at the time and the Egyptians I spoke to were very hopeful of qualification, having forced a play-off with a last minute equaliser. I ventured that should they lose, Egyptians would want to support England – defying the history of Empire and the Suez Crisis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis ). Politely, Egyptians explained that African and Arabic unity would mean they’d be backing Algeria. However, mistreatment of Egyptians fans after they lost the play-off was pumped up and led to disturbances in the country ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/24/egypt-cairo-football-riots ) and it’s quite possible they will be backing England on Friday 18th June.