Australia Night
Last night I had the displeasure of washing up while listening to the England v Australia friendly from Upton Park. I was disappointed that James Beattie’s England debut was overshadowed by the inept performance given by the rest of the first-half team. I genuinely hope that Sven will give him another chance, because I’m sure he can shine at international level when surrounded by committed team-mates. He clearly wasn’t last night.
These overpaid professional footballers seem not to care about playing for their country. The talk from the manager in the run-up to the game, downplaying the significance of the fixture, clearly didn’t help. Committing himself to eleven half-time substitutions was also rather presumptuous, though the P.A. announcement of the substitutes received the biggest cheer from the England fans, who had little else to be happy about, bar the final whistle, all night.
Perhaps we should abolish the concept of ‘friendly’ matches — especially against traditionally fierce sporting rivals like Australia — and replace them with Test Matches, as in Rugby and Cricket. That should guarantee a bit of fire, a bit of passion from the players. Clearly the F.A. and Sven himself have to rein in some of the more vocal Premiership managers like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger and remind them that the highest priority should be the National team, not club football. This will be hard to do when there is so much at stake in, for instance, the "Champions’" League when compared to the European Championships or the World Cup.
Never mind, Beatts. Your chance will come again.