SIR ALEX FERGUSON’S famous phrase — “Football? Bloody hell” — did not even begin to tell the story last night of the most astonishing game involving a team from these shores since Manchester United went to the Nou Camp. This, though, was not a tale of last-ditch heroics as in 1999, but of a defeat that will leave the England players feeling sick to their stomachs. The European Championship has only just begun, but some of them, David Beckham included after his failure to score from the penalty spot, left the pitch in tears.
“Victory is written in blue” is the slogan daubed on the side of the France team coach but, until an extraordinary finale, it appeared that it would come wrapped in the St George’s cross. Then Zinedine Zidane took charge, as was always the danger when England were facing the best player in the world.
Zidane had been kept largely anonymous as England had suffocated the France attack, so much so that their fans were crowing at Thierry Henry’s impotence, but a foul by Emile Heskey gave Zidane a free shot at goal from 20 yards with the game already in stoppage time. His free kick swept over the wall and into the bottom corner. After all their brilliant defending, and Frank Lampard’s headed goal, England were to be left with only a point.
If only. As the clock ticked down, Steven Gerrard made his first and only significant mistake of the evening when he failed to look before hitting a back-pass. Henry could hardly believe his luck and, as he rounded David James, the goalkeeper felled him. Zidane scored from the spot, as Beckham had failed to do almost 20 minutes earlier. No wonder the England captain looked so upset. It felt like the end of the campaign, not the start.
The goalless draw between Croatia and Switzerland earlier in the day had shown that there was not too much to fear from the weaker teams in group B. If only England could emerge unscathed they could move forward with confidence, but so keen was the expectation of tonight's match — in the England dressing-room more than anywhere — that it felt at kick-off like the final and not the first skirmishes of what Sven-Göran Eriksson and his players believed could be a long campaign.
If they were delighted by England’s dominance in the stands of the rebuilt Stadium of Light, the players never looked overly alarmed by France’s dominance of possession. Allowing their opponents time on the ball was the price they were always going to have to pay for their strategy of defending on the edge of their own area in order to cut down the space for Henry to run into. It was a ploy that could only be said to have worked to perfection at the interval even if, Lampard ’s goal aside, France had looked the far more assured team. Ledley King had played with astonishing assurance on his competitive debut while the midfield had followed orders and not dived into tackles around their own box, even if they had conceded a high count of fouls.
Much of France’s menace had been in the sleight of foot of Zidane, whose mastery of a football makes Paul Scholes, England’s best technician, look clumsy by comparison. England’s midfield players and Wayne Rooney, whose precociousness was breathtaking, were almost queueing up to try to dispossess the world’s best player. Most failed, but Zidane had not been allowed to make the sort of pass that can change a game. When, in the thirteenth minute, he eluded his many pursuers and found space around 25 yards from goal, Gerrard was suddenly gripped with a look of panic, but the France captain struck the silver ball wide of David James’s post.
England did not have a shot by way of response until the 27th minute, when Scholes was similarly wayward. In fact, they were looking at their most uneasy just when they took the lead in the 38th minute through Lampard. The headed goal was a surprise in just about every way, particularly in its execution, because France were far more physically imposing than England. Players such as Lilian Thuram, Patrick Vieira, David Trezeguet and Henry towered above all but Sol Campbell, but Lampard was the man who met Beckham’s free kick, which the England captain had won himself. The Chelsea midfield player’s header flew past Fabien Barthez from around eight yards and Mikaël Silvestre, his marker, was left with the look of a guilty man.
As they walked off at half-time, France must have felt like victims of a mugging, but Eriksson had no cause to apologise. However much his team have developed over the past couple of years, the England head coach knew that they would never come out winners of an open contest of skill. Their policy was containment even before Lampard’s header and it was a task that grew harder as France came at them with more vigour. There was no little irony when the first booking of the game went to Robert Pires, supposedly the most effete player on the pitch, for a foul on Scholes.
Scholes and Lampard were cautioned for crude hacks at Vieira as England struggled to keep hold of the ball for long enough to relieve an increasingly overworked but still exceptionally diligent defence. Pressure on the back four was growing, but no one could dispute tactics that made Henry so impotent, and the game should have been finished as a contest when Rooney, brilliant all evening until he was substituted, charged clear of the France defence and was tripped by Silvestre to win a penalty.
Silvestre was lucky not to be dismissed rather than merely cautioned and he escaped a second time when Beckham’s penalty was pushed away by Barthez. Beckham had not paid for his missed spot kick against Turkey and he had 18 minutes to hope that he would not regret failing to beat his former Manchester United colleague from 12 yards. It was a wish that was to be cruelly dashed in stoppage time.
Referee: M Merk (Germany) 6. Attendance: 64,000
GROUP B RESULTS
Switzerland 0 Croatia 0
France 2 England 1
REMAINING FIXTURES
THURSDAY: England v Switzerland (in Coimbra, 5.0); Croatia v France (in Leiria, 7.45)
JUNE 21: Croatia v England (in Lisbon 7.45); Switzerland v France (in Coimbra 7.45).
