Post by Salem6 on Dec 1, 2003 7:30:27 GMT
By Patrick Barclay
(Filed: 30/11/2003)
Oh, to be in England, now the age of sporting prosperity has dawned. Events in Sydney were only the start; next summer Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad will follow in the triumphant footsteps of Clive Woodward's.
By strawberries-and-cream time, they should be so far down the path to European Championship success that Tim Henman can enjoy an almost pressure-free Wimbledon.
Perhaps the last bit is an exaggeration, but I have been warning you of the renaissance (or should that be naissance?) and increasingly it can be appreciated. In football, of course, it lacks the traditional Englishness exuded by Clive, Jonny, Johnno and Tim.
With a Swede in charge of the national team and foreigners occupying the key roles, on and off the field, in all three clubs shaping up for sustained Champions League campaigns, the phrase "English football" is one of convenience. But there is no doubt in my mind that London is becoming the economic and sporting capital of the game.
Even if it could be argued that the club most likely to bring the Champions League trophy here, as they did in 1999, are from Manchester. It is not necessarily my opinion; both Chelsea and Arsenal look equipped. But the point made by Thierry Henry's magnificent destruction of Inter in Milan last Tuesday was that anything is possible for Arsenal, just as it is for Real Madrid; there are no longer any barriers to the Premiership's elite.
Everything advances at such a pace. A year ago, Chelsea at home to United would have been merely a match of above-average attraction. Today it will be monitored from the Kerry coast to the Siberian wastes (a chunk of which was Roman Abramovich's hobby before he acquired Chelsea) and farther afield.
A year ago, even Sky presenters would have hesitated before mentioning Chelsea-United in the same breath as Barcelona-Real Madrid, which takes place in the Camp Nou a week hence. Now they could do it without embarrassment.
According to Claudio Ranieri, his Chelsea remain pretenders to such status. "When you talk about Barcelona-Real," he said on Friday, "you talk about two teams accustomed to being at the top, even though Barcelona have dipped in the last few years.
"It's the same with Milan-Juventus. And Manchester-Arsenal. You see? We want to be there. We want that pedigree. But we are not there yet."
They looked close to making up for lost time with found money in losing, a shade unluckily, at Highbury and the impression was enhanced by a thrashing of Lazio in Rome. How Stamford Bridge would love now to witness a demonstrable, incontestable return on Abramovich's investment.
Perhaps the importance of the event conspired to make both clubs' midweek matches low-key. During Chelsea's scoreless draw with Sparta Prague, certainly, the biggest cheer was when the prawn sandwiches arrived.
Not that anything could have exceeded the Henry-inspired display of Arsenal, which not only proved the Frenchman to be the world's outstanding footballer at present but confirmed the decline of Italy's top clubs. Although there were three of them in the Champions League semi-finals last season, I felt at the time it was an aberration.
I also contended, as we contemplated an all-Italian final at Old Trafford, that the significance of defending in the modern game was being overstated.
Of course it matters; of course a team must be organised to function efficiently without the ball in order to have the slightest chance of punching their weight (hence the widespread fear that Real have made themselves too vulnerable by selling Claude Makelele).
But the main reason Serie A defences have such a high reputation is that they are usually facing Serie A attacks, in which admittedly excellent strikers are left to forage alone or heavily outnumbered, as is seldom the case with Henry at Arsenal or Ruud van Nistelrooy at United or Hernan Crespo at Chelsea.
English clubs usually beat their Italian counterparts these days. And with growing severity. Henry was only the latest to show acclaimed defenders what their job would entail if they came to the Premiership.
Damien Duff did it when Chelsea put four goals past Lazio and Ryan Giggs when United beat Juventus by three in Turin last season (exceeding the margin of Arsenal's victory at Roma). Meanwhile the Germans, with the exception of Stuttgart, are getting no better and the Spanish assault on the European title seems ominously reliant on Madrid.
They and Milan, reigning champions and the best balanced of the Italian sides, are the only impediments I can see to an English reassertion. Along with Celtic, if they survive; Martin O'Neill's men are willing to outfight anyone.
It is a quality exemplified by Roy Keane at United and Ranieri, asked if John Terry and Frank Lampard could supply the equivalent at Chelsea, emphatically agreed. Both have made an impact on the England side this season and both, said Ranieri, had benefited from the example of top-class professionals such as Marcel Desailly and Gianfranco Zola.
"I think they can be like Marcel - a strong man for their club and also their national team." He was quite happy for Terry, even though he is not 23 until next weekend, to be captain in Desailly's absence. "For me, John is an innate leader."
There was something in the papers last week about an American woman with a rare medical condition known as "foreign accent syndrome", a speech disorder that left her, after a stroke, talking like a Cockney who had spent time in the West Country, even though she had never so much as crossed the Atlantic.
It made me wonder if Ranieri is really an Italian. Every time you mention an archetypal English footballer - and Terry is one - he grins and stiffens and clenches a fist and goes all warlike. It would hardly surprise me if he turned out not to be Claudio Ranieri from Rome at all - but Charlie Raynor from Romford.
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2003/11/30/sfnbar30.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/30/ixportal.html
(Filed: 30/11/2003)
Oh, to be in England, now the age of sporting prosperity has dawned. Events in Sydney were only the start; next summer Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad will follow in the triumphant footsteps of Clive Woodward's.
By strawberries-and-cream time, they should be so far down the path to European Championship success that Tim Henman can enjoy an almost pressure-free Wimbledon.
Perhaps the last bit is an exaggeration, but I have been warning you of the renaissance (or should that be naissance?) and increasingly it can be appreciated. In football, of course, it lacks the traditional Englishness exuded by Clive, Jonny, Johnno and Tim.
With a Swede in charge of the national team and foreigners occupying the key roles, on and off the field, in all three clubs shaping up for sustained Champions League campaigns, the phrase "English football" is one of convenience. But there is no doubt in my mind that London is becoming the economic and sporting capital of the game.
Even if it could be argued that the club most likely to bring the Champions League trophy here, as they did in 1999, are from Manchester. It is not necessarily my opinion; both Chelsea and Arsenal look equipped. But the point made by Thierry Henry's magnificent destruction of Inter in Milan last Tuesday was that anything is possible for Arsenal, just as it is for Real Madrid; there are no longer any barriers to the Premiership's elite.
Everything advances at such a pace. A year ago, Chelsea at home to United would have been merely a match of above-average attraction. Today it will be monitored from the Kerry coast to the Siberian wastes (a chunk of which was Roman Abramovich's hobby before he acquired Chelsea) and farther afield.
A year ago, even Sky presenters would have hesitated before mentioning Chelsea-United in the same breath as Barcelona-Real Madrid, which takes place in the Camp Nou a week hence. Now they could do it without embarrassment.
According to Claudio Ranieri, his Chelsea remain pretenders to such status. "When you talk about Barcelona-Real," he said on Friday, "you talk about two teams accustomed to being at the top, even though Barcelona have dipped in the last few years.
"It's the same with Milan-Juventus. And Manchester-Arsenal. You see? We want to be there. We want that pedigree. But we are not there yet."
They looked close to making up for lost time with found money in losing, a shade unluckily, at Highbury and the impression was enhanced by a thrashing of Lazio in Rome. How Stamford Bridge would love now to witness a demonstrable, incontestable return on Abramovich's investment.
Perhaps the importance of the event conspired to make both clubs' midweek matches low-key. During Chelsea's scoreless draw with Sparta Prague, certainly, the biggest cheer was when the prawn sandwiches arrived.
Not that anything could have exceeded the Henry-inspired display of Arsenal, which not only proved the Frenchman to be the world's outstanding footballer at present but confirmed the decline of Italy's top clubs. Although there were three of them in the Champions League semi-finals last season, I felt at the time it was an aberration.
I also contended, as we contemplated an all-Italian final at Old Trafford, that the significance of defending in the modern game was being overstated.
Of course it matters; of course a team must be organised to function efficiently without the ball in order to have the slightest chance of punching their weight (hence the widespread fear that Real have made themselves too vulnerable by selling Claude Makelele).
But the main reason Serie A defences have such a high reputation is that they are usually facing Serie A attacks, in which admittedly excellent strikers are left to forage alone or heavily outnumbered, as is seldom the case with Henry at Arsenal or Ruud van Nistelrooy at United or Hernan Crespo at Chelsea.
English clubs usually beat their Italian counterparts these days. And with growing severity. Henry was only the latest to show acclaimed defenders what their job would entail if they came to the Premiership.
Damien Duff did it when Chelsea put four goals past Lazio and Ryan Giggs when United beat Juventus by three in Turin last season (exceeding the margin of Arsenal's victory at Roma). Meanwhile the Germans, with the exception of Stuttgart, are getting no better and the Spanish assault on the European title seems ominously reliant on Madrid.
They and Milan, reigning champions and the best balanced of the Italian sides, are the only impediments I can see to an English reassertion. Along with Celtic, if they survive; Martin O'Neill's men are willing to outfight anyone.
It is a quality exemplified by Roy Keane at United and Ranieri, asked if John Terry and Frank Lampard could supply the equivalent at Chelsea, emphatically agreed. Both have made an impact on the England side this season and both, said Ranieri, had benefited from the example of top-class professionals such as Marcel Desailly and Gianfranco Zola.
"I think they can be like Marcel - a strong man for their club and also their national team." He was quite happy for Terry, even though he is not 23 until next weekend, to be captain in Desailly's absence. "For me, John is an innate leader."
There was something in the papers last week about an American woman with a rare medical condition known as "foreign accent syndrome", a speech disorder that left her, after a stroke, talking like a Cockney who had spent time in the West Country, even though she had never so much as crossed the Atlantic.
It made me wonder if Ranieri is really an Italian. Every time you mention an archetypal English footballer - and Terry is one - he grins and stiffens and clenches a fist and goes all warlike. It would hardly surprise me if he turned out not to be Claudio Ranieri from Rome at all - but Charlie Raynor from Romford.
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2003/11/30/sfnbar30.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/30/ixportal.html