A work experience lad went along to Sir Alex Ferguson’s press briefing on
Friday. “You want to get into this profession?” asked the manager, hamming
up his incredulity. “How old are you?” The reply, “15”, came with a
confidence of which Ferguson approved. “That’s the kind of boy I’ll give an
individual interview to,” he smiled at journalists. “You lot? No chance.”
As a Scotsman, Ferguson could be in good form. His country had lost poorly in
Georgia 36 hours previously but qualification for Euro 2008 is still in
Scotland’s hands, and overachievement is still the theme of their qualifying
campaign. For the English, since Wednesday, there have been no such
comforts. And yet neither nationality nor levity stopped Ferguson expressing
regret about the position that now befalls Steve McClaren and his team.
Asked if he will be glad, from a Manchester United point of view, if England
are not in next year’s finals, he said: “No. It’s disappointing if England
don’t make it, it really is disappointing. I’ve always thought playing in
big tournaments is good for your players.”
Sitting on the sofa while the big events happen elsewhere is a location now
familiar to English players. It is where most will be this week. The restart
of the Champions League brings no comfort to those worried about England in
relation to its national game. No country enters more teams and yet no
country with pretensions to being a major football power provides the
competition with fewer players. The situation is indicative of how English
playing standards have sunk. “There are some pretty distressing figures,”
said Ferguson. “How many Brazilians played in the Champions League in the
last two rounds of games? How many Englishmen played? How many Scotsmen
played? More Scotsmen played in the Champions League than Englishmen, and
that’s amazing.”
A look at the last Champions League round - Matchday Two - confirms Ferguson’s
point and perhaps shows how shallow is the English well of talent compared
to other countries. Not only were there more Scots than English playing in
the Champions League in the games on October 2 and 3, but there were also
more Portuguese, Serbs, Turks, Czechs and Romanians. France had 34 of its
players involved, Italy 30, Spain 29 and Germany 20 and yet England, with
just 12 players, fancy themselves as equals, if not first among equals,
within Europe’s traditional “big five”. As it was, but for Steve Sidwell
coming on for the last six minutes for Chelsea’s match against Valencia,
England would have had the same number of representatives as the Ivory
Coast.
Was it any wonder McClaren’s men in Moscow lacked knowledge of how to close
out a major international match away from home when comparatively few of his
squad are being hardened by the tough journeys involved playing for your
club in the Champions League? Manchester United have a difficult trip to
Kiev on Tuesday and Liverpool an equally arduous one to Istanbul the
following night, but with Paul Scholes and Jamie Carragher retired and Gary
Neville, Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves injured, only six footballers
available to McClaren are likely to benefit from the experience: Wayne
Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Wes Brown, Jermaine Pennant, Rio Ferdinand and Peter
Crouch. As for Brazilians, just in the four games involving English clubs,
there will almost certainly be more of them playing than Englishmen. England
thinks itself capable of winning World Cups, therefore it must feel it can
beat Brazil. And yet compared to England’s 12 there were 53 Brazilians
playing in Champions League Matchday Two, among them Andersons and Edus
you’ve never heard of, Robertos and Alexes who will never get within a mile
of their national team. Dynamo Kiev could take the field against Manchester
United with Diogo Rincon, Carlos Correa and Giacomace Kleber; Besiktas
against Liverpool with Bobo, Marcio Nobre and Ricardinho; Schalke against
Chelsea with Rafinha and Marcelo Bordon; Slavia Prague against Arsenal with
Rogerio Gaucho. Even in their own country, people might struggle to
recognise these Samba Boys.
Should Michel Platini, the Uefa president, get his wish and cut the number of
English clubs in the Champions League from four to three the situation will
deteriorate further, for apart from Celtic’s Lee Naylor there are no
Englishmen at leading non-English clubs. That said, if Arsenal were the
English club to drop out the effect would be negligible: the Gunners field
XIs comprised entirely of foreigners so often it is no longer news, and the
only English names on the ‘A’ player list they submitted to Uefa are those
of Theo Walcott and Justin Hoyte. “I’ve thought about it a few times,” said
Ferguson. “I’ve wondered whether it has an overall, lasting effect. I think
there has to be an impact of some sort, the number of foreign players in our
game.”
Ferguson has just sent another batch of young English players out on loan to
give them the first-team football they cannot find at Manchester United. It
was also a demonstration that he is confident about the depth of his squad
and he made a surprisingly definite and early announcement that United will
not be entering the transfer market in the mid-season window. “Definitely
not,” said Ferguson. “We won’t be strengthening in January, I can assure you
of that. The ones who’ve gone on loan are only going until January anyway
and our squad will be stronger by then. I’m expecting Ji-Sung Park back from
injury and Hargreaves will be back by that time, surely. Gary Neville should
be back. Michael Carrick should be back. And the players who have covered
for them have done really well. I’m not too worried about injuries. We’ve
got enough good bodies to fill the red jersey.”
Ferguson is looking for three points in Kiev “because that would put us in a
great position to qualify [from the group stage] and get it done early”.
Though Dynamo, he felt, should have defeated rather than lost against
Sporting Lisbon in their last game, and “it’s one of those where we’ll go
with a bit of caution”, he was as anxious about the travelling to Ukraine as
the opposition, with Carlos Tevez having flown to Venezuela on international
duty last week and Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani having done likewise to
Kazakhstan. There is, of course, one way to minimise his players’ air miles
in international weeks: use more Englishmen. Ferguson would, if only more
were good enough.
Anybody here speak English?
‘More Scots than Englishmen played in the last round of Champions League
games and that’s amazing’
Sir Alex Ferguson
- The 32 teams involved in the Champions League matches of October 2/3 fi elded
players from 60 different nations (including substitutes who actually
played). The Old Firm had 13 Scots between them, while Chelsea, Manchester
United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Celtic managed only 12 Englishmen. Brazil,
with 53 players, was the nation best represented
- Those English players were Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Wayne Rooney, Rio
Ferdinand (all Manchester United), Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, John Terry, Steve
Sidwell (all Chelsea), Jamie Carragher, Peter Crouch, Steven Gerrard (all
Liverpool), and Lee Naylor (Celtic). Arsenal had no English players. Of
these 12, Scholes and Carragher have already quit international football
Players by nationality
53 Brazil, 34 France, 30 Italy, 29 Spain, 23
Portugal, 20 Argentina, Germany, 16 Romania, 15 Turkey,
Czech Rep, 14 Serbia, 13 Scotland, Holland, 12 England, 11
Ivory Coast, 10 Ukraine
