Addio Golden Generation

Writing in itself is cheap self-therapy they tell, a cathartic release from tension and frustration but after last Sunday I could write me a river and it'd make no difference. How many times can you get that dizzying sense of déjà vu with that vague whiff of puke wallowing up from the depths of your gut?

It's the end of a childhood dream for me, at the tender age of 40. Never will naive hope raise its sappy head again. And to think I risked life and limb flying home on my scooter on via Magliana to catch the second half of England – Slovenia! One hapless sap watching a load of 'em.

It was enough to make grown men weep familiar tears and young boys shrug their innocent shoulders because they’ve never known any different. Our collective hopes dashed yet again by those mean, super-efficient and predictably nerveless Germans. So we’re left with our pens in our hands (among other things) to pick over the remains of yet another debacle, of yet another outrageous piece of bad luck/bad refereeing as history repeats itself. Again. Not that we were playing well, we weren’t. You make your own luck, the same people say and they are probably right. We just about got what we deserved, despite clinging onto the hope that we might have turned things around if only. If only. More likely is that the Germans would have raised their game. We'll never know.

Our billing as a leading footballing nation must now be shown up for what it frankly is: a total and utter fallacy. We are not and haven’t been for quite a while. The last time we were even remotely competitive was 20 years ago when we reached the semis here in Italy and were, as is our destiny, unlucky to go out. Even the Germans belatedly admitted we’d probably deserved it on the balance of play. In the intervening years, however, football has moved forward while we have stood still, continuing to develop strong and physical players while more skilful smaller players fall mostly by the wayside. Where are the lightweight English Yossi Benayouns? Add to that the undying adoration, the debatable conviction that our league is the best in the world, consistent Champions League success, the obscene amounts of money, the inevitable sex (and other) scandals, the media pressure and the Hollywood lifestyles that footballers enjoy and we have what we have: one unmitigated disaster after another. Now if we looked away from the blinding glamour of the Premiership for a second, we’d see that our record in the World Cup in the last 40 years is anything but “great”. The main problem here is that we can’t accept the fact that the game we invented is played better by others and has been for a long, long time. Everyone else is better at developing talent, more psychologically prepared for the challenge, less prone to injuries (isn’t anxiety a factor here too?), more tactically astute and more willing to get their heads down and work it would appear. Plus we seem intent on playing more games than everyone else. Even since the relative success in 1986 and 1990, where more importantly we actually played some decent football, our recent history makes bleak reading both for results and performances: in 1994, our heroic turnips didn’t qualify; in 1998, there was that goal against Argentina who we should have beaten but again the Gods were against us (maybe it’s time we gave up the Malvinas?); in 2002 we looked pretty good but again a lack of guile and goalkeeping howlers undid us; in 2006 we were God awful but reached the quarter-finals and this time round we were worse and didn’t. How many shots on target was it in 4 games? Less than ten? What a sorry state of affairs. So we’re a leading nation, are we? Not unless New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay (no offence, you’re better than us) can also be considered part of this illustrious group. The Kiwis did a great job against the Italians and almost sneaked it too (we would have been hailed as world beaters if we’d performed as well against the World Champions).
So what exactly do the cocksure, efficient and relaxed Germans have that we don’t? Perhaps it’s that they’re secure in the knowledge that they can pass and move and shoot and control a ball with the ease becoming of a professional footballer? Perhaps it’s their humility? They can certainly handle the pressure better - did our lads look relaxed for one moment of their brief stay in South Africa apart from when they were tweeting around the pool? When I saw them all red-faced and sweaty before kick-off against the USA, I knew we were in for more disappointment. “Let the suffering begin!” I neglected to tweet. How sadly inaccurate all those theories now look in the face of our heroes’ knocking knees ? The weather will suit us, they told us, we have more experience than the Germans, we can top our group and then get an easy ride to the semis, we are good enough to win it and blah-di-blah-di-blah. Our lads swan around like they’re the bees’ knees for most of the year in their luxury cars and swanky (that is the right adjective, isn’t it?) clothes but when faced with the real deal in a World Cup game, they transform into a bunch of rabbits in the headlights. “Don’t look at me!! Don’t pass me that funny ball whose name I can’t pronounce let alone spell!!” Not only are we technically inferior to a lot of teams, we can’t even rely on our goddamn Dunkirk spirit any more – what is the world coming to? Admittedly, the luxury lifestyle that grates with many is par for the course so we shouldn’t complain about that too much – it’s us that pampers them after all – but to see our dummies turn out in nappies against apparently lesser opposition is galling for us ordinary fans. So much talk for so little substance. In the top 16 in the world but not the top 8 sounds about right, though on current form it’s generous.
Hang on a sec, aren’t our players supposed to be some of the best in the world? Didn’t I read that somewhere or hear those words drop convincingly from the lips of one or two of our superstars? Well, on closer analysis, this too falls apart at the seams. Sorry about this but I have to start somewhere: Glen Johnson is not a complete footballer. He already looked unnervingly ill at ease against the Great Slovenians but against Germany he was just woeful. I don’t know whether anyone in England noticed but for Germany’s second goal, as Podolski was teeing up his shot, Glen Johnson (the best right back in the country apparently) instead of trying to put body and soul between the ball and the goal suddenly jumped away from the goal as if he wanted to catch someone offside! Youtube it, footytube it, watch the damn replay, it was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. It got worse: he then let the guy cut across him before setting up Muller for that third goal instead of clipping his heels like any world class defender would have done, raised arms and “not me, Guv” expression and all. He later got booked for a tactical foul when we were 4-1 down – oh, Glen, well done, son. Even then, James should have saved it – Muller hit it straight at him but James in his wisdom was already going down the wrong way. Why wait for the shot? How ludicrous! How on earth the best keeper in the country can come from a relegated team is beyond me. He may have some qualities that the others lack, like exuding silky confidence (how funny his “we’re better than the Germans” statement now sounds) and doing some modelling on the side, but is he seriously the best keeper out there? Maybe Rednapp was right when he said that it was scandalous to omit Robinson.
Throughout the tournament, defensively we were poor all over and that was clear to see. The first goal was route one: embarrassing. In the build-up to the second goal the Germans used that other highly sophisticated technique to split our defence: a one-two. Revolutionary. Our lads must have been well impressed but we do live in a footballing culture where commentators still refer to a professional footballer’s wrong foot! John Terry (so many “leaders” on the pitch when we could have done with a few more real or on-form defenders) looked out of his depth for most of the game but he’s had a tough year, the poor baby (how many German players were involved in money or sex scandals in the run-up to the World Cup?) Okay, so Upson was caught for the first goal (but was Klose onside when the keeper kicked off?) but at least he had the balls to go up the other end and make amends. You’ll notice I’ve had a memory lapse as to the key moment in the Germany match but bear with me. Now Steven, I commend his effort and I feel for him but I fear his barnstorming days of old are gone. Last season, Gerrard lost that yard of pace that used to take him past players and also his shooting has abandoned him. I won’t mention his private life too much but does anyone out there think we’d get away with a GBH charge on the defence that we thought we were going to be attacked? Mmm, I doubt it somehow. He hasn’t really been the same since. Lampard looks absolutely world class when he plays on his home patch but then looks like a duck out of water with the big fish – how many shots is that, 40 without a goal in World Cups (at least he gets his shots off I guess)? Rooney too after either playing on while injured this year or coming back too quickly from injury probably compromised his form for the summer. His bloody-mindedness has cost us dear. On a technical note, I would personally say to Rooney that the next time he comes within 5 yards of the halfway line to pick up the ball, leaving no-one (or worse still, Emile Heskey) upfront to actually score, he’s coming straight off, like it or not, scowls or no damn scowls. World class means doing it against the biggest and the best, consistently, which Rooney doesn’t seem to be able to do at the moment. He seems to lose heart too very easily. Remember his Champions’ League debut for Man U? What happened to that explosive fearless teenager? That caged animal? Barry too looked like a man who’d just come back from injury. On the flanks, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Lennon hardly look like world beaters, now do they? Carragher is too slow to justify a place in Liverpool’s back four let alone England’s. Milner got sick and that was that. I can’t think of a single player who played to his potential (apart from, yes you guessed it, Heskey, who does exactly what it says on the box, i.e. “Will not score under any circumstances”) and generally speaking very few of our players are actually complete footballers. As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got great positional sense as a defender but you’re slow to catch Klose you shouldn’t be playing. If as a defender, you’re good going forward (Ashley Cole sometimes, Glen Johnson not recently) but can’t actually defend then I’m sorry you should look for another job, on the pitch or off it. He’s as fast as lightning but he can’t cross to save his life (Lennon): sign him up I say!! Haven’t got a left foot? There’s a job going in my local chippie. The fact is that we talk up our players too much and they fall for it thinking they can smack people up in clubs, write what they like on facebook, sleep around, take cash for illegal tours round clubs and that because they are adored they’ll be forgiven, pardoned and acquitted. I’m praying those days are over.
Let’s fantasise for a moment about what should have happened. Even playing as piss-poorly as we did, we should have won the group and then we would have had our best chance in 20 years of getting to the semi-finals of the World Cup. When we were unable to put 2 past Slovenia and the USA scored in the last minute against Algeria, we probably should have known that our time was up before it had even started. At least we didn’t end up bottom of our group with 2 points like some but Italy at least win the damn thing or get to a final every ten to fifteen years.
They may have more than their share of the luck with the ladies but Lady Luck wasn’t on our side in South Africa. In the Germany game, the Gods frowned on us (kinda makes you regret winning the war, almost) and handed Germany an enormous slice of luck that they probably didn’t even need. Journalists in England can go on about not being good enough as much as they like and that the best team ultimately won but that goal that wasn’t was clearly the turning point in the match. We would have gone in with our tails up and who knows what would have happened in the second half. Deserving it isn’t really the point. It’s a question of winning games by scoring more goals than the other lot. If it was purely down to quality then we shouldn’t even have bothered getting on the plane. What’s wrong with these journalists anyway? When we deserve to go through but lose “tragically” on penalties they bemoan England’s misfortune but then this time round they say the “phantom” goal hardly matters because the Germans outplayed them. Make up your minds, lads - maybe Ashley Cole on his facebook page was referring to the English media when he wrote what he wrote. No-one knows what would have happened in the second half – the momentum would however have definitely been with us.
So what's wrong with our heroes? Is it because our manager is a bleedin’ foreigner? Being foreign in managerial terms is quite frankly an advantage but more than anything it’s the lack of English that’s Capello’s problem, along with the rest of his Italian-speaking team. He barely can and his staff can’t. Being able to communicate effectively with your players before, during and after games is, as we can all imagine, an essential part of being a manager. When Capello screams from the touchline, what language is he doing it in? And come to think of it, which of the other great footballing nations have experimented with foreign managers? Only Portugal with Scolari’s and guess what his native language is? Language isn’t a detail, it’s not a holiday romance where you don’t speak the lingo of the person you just picked up because you communicate in kind. Beyond this, his reputation can’t be knocked although some of the choices he made for his squad can be (Walcott, Robinson, Campbell and Darren Bent should probably have made the final 23). Taking Beckham and forcing him to wear a Marks and Spencer suit was both cruel and unnecessary. I won’t even go into the boot camp and beerless bits or having Psycho as his assistant. But he’s had a lot on his plate recently. After a smooth qualifying campaign, he was faced with scandal, injury, loss of form and mutiny. Most of which was probably anxiety-fuelled. I’m sure he was lost for words, at least in English (seriously though, can anyone imagine a stuttering Englishman in charge of the Italian national side apart from in some perverse parallel universe?). At the tournament itself, I’m not sure he made all the right decisions. Should he have replaced Green with James? I’m tempted to think that Green would have saved Muller’s first goal. Should he have played Wright-Phillips? Should Carragher have replaced Ferdinand? Should Crouch have got more of a look-in like he would have expected? Who knows.
Some would cite structural or admin problems, that the FA, UEFA and FIFA are run by ignorant dinosaurs who understand little or nothing about football and it would be difficult to argue to against it. Their steadfast resistance to the introduction of technology is senseless, even a small child knows that it would make football better. Referees refusing to look at the big screen replays was just pure farce. And introducing a new ball during the showpiece for world football is the kind of thing the Italian government would do. Nuff said.
On a domestic grassroots level, it’s clear that we in England don’t invest enough in pure talent and I would even suggest that there’s a racism issue against certain immigrant communities. Only a few years ago, someone at the higher echelons of English football said publicly that Asian kids didn’t have the physique for football. But Yossi Banayoun does, right? It’s just a limited personal experience, but when I was at school in the 70s and 80s, some of the best players were of Asian or Chinese origin so there’s got to be a reason in my mind why absolutely no-one has made it. Apart from Chopra, who probably doesn’t have scouts scurrying down to Friday night prayers to sign up some kids.
There’s so much wrong that it would be difficult to know where to start. Add to that, various mystical forces going against us and I can’t see us recovering any time soon.
So our World Cup is over before it really got going. How we pine for the days of Lineker, Gascoigne and err, Steve Hodge. Now the suffering’s over, we can finally relax and enjoy ourselves. Along with our boys who are probably having a whale of a time alongside some pool somewhere exotic birds and booze to hand. . Addio, Golden Generation, and thanks for the memories (beating Germany 5-1, competing with Argentina in 1998, beating Argentina in 2002, and that’s about it I think)
For the record, my money is on an Argentina – Brazil final. Now those boys can play.
It’s not all doom and gloom, as they say here in Italy, when one Pope dies, there’s always another just around the corner - there are only about 700 days to go to the European Championships in 2012. I must admit though I’m secretly hoping the Mayans were right so we don’t have to sit through more decades of this or sift through more bloody remains.

When is Barclays bank not exactly Barclays?

This may sound like some kind of cunning Italian trabocchetto, but it ain’t a trick question and it ain’t no laughing matter. Not for me at least. I’ve been trying to keep this under my hat, to keep the lid on my fuming rage but when a letter arrived from my “English” bank yesterday (Barclays Italia), for which I was unnaturally charged, I thought, “Ok, mo’ basta!”. Enough is enough. I’ve got something on my chest and it ain’t my chin. Weighing approximately the same as a packet of sugar, it contained reams of indecipherable nonsense in ridiculous smallprint and arcaic Italian about various terms and conditions about debitori and creditori, all in the name of Italian transparenza. Fifteen pages of stuff that means nothing to no-one and that no-one is actually meant to read but all designed to cover their backsides when you happen to complain that you’re been overcharged for something silly. “No, no, guardi,” they’ll say in that oh-so-friendly way as your butt cheeks instinctively clench, “we sent you all the terms and conditions for your account. It’s here on page 14, point 3b, plain as the nose on your face.” And they smugly state that Italian banks have been immune to the crisis – slowly, quietly, sweetly screwing their customers every day of the week helps to boost that immunity no end. Now, you may say that perhaps my Italian isn’t up to it. It is. I’ve given similar letters to students of mine in the past in a desperate attempt to glean some sense but it’s Greek to them too. “Oh, Deep, you’re not supposed to worry about that. No-one actually reads these things, you silly, silly, naïve, darling boy!” “But what if, inbetween all the flowery medieval Italian, it says that the bank manager can now have dinner at your house every Friday and sleep with your wife afterwards?” I protested. “Come on, Deep, non esagerare." The story is long and old so I’ll start at the beginning. Bear with me and sit down. It’s painful. I used to be with Monte dei Paschi di Siena, a nice friendly Italian bank conveniently located under our school where I was always greeted in that intimate Italian way like one of the bleedin’ family. Okay, so I had to pay a few euros every month to have an account which was initially galling but then I just stomached it (along with everything else – don’t go there, not now) because, you know, they were so damn friendly and all. Occasionally I was escorted into an office and told about various investments I could make and on more than one occasion, amid the amiable chit-chat and warm hands on shoulders, I found myself signing five or six sheets of indecipherable smallprint in a grinning daze, high on caffeine. “This clause here that mentions dinner, Friday nights, my wife and the Direttore – what’s that about then?” I was sometimes awake enough to ask. “Oh no, nothing to worry about,” they would say, “ tranquillo.” Tranquillo. Can you feel that tightening sensation around your rectum? Sadly on those occasions I didn’t trust my arse. My investments went tette in su and when I complained that I had lost not only all the interest accumulated over five years but also 30% of my capital and no-one had had the nous to even call me up, my words were met with the oh-so-typical-Italian shrug of the shoulders. Swiftly followed by the extended arms I-relinquish-all-responsibility gesture that's as common as a tooting horn. “We aren’t legally obliged to contact clients until they lose 50% of their investment,” I was told. So I huffed and I pùffed but no houses came down. It'll take more than the words of some unconnected schmuck to break the hold of Italian banks on Italian society. Ever seen any articles in any Italian newspapers criticising the banks? Nope. And why? Err, 'cos the banks own the newspapers, dummy! So I walked out of the bank no longer as a customer, vowing never to have anything to do with Italian banks again. They couldn't have cared less. On my scooter riding home one night, Barclays appeared on the horizon like a mirage in the desert, like a bottle of beer before an alcoholic. Little did I know that appearances can deceive. I went in and my laments were met with knowing nods, compassionate understanding. I've come to the right place. “Here we do things differently, we’re Barclays but you know who we are already, I don’t need to tell you what we’re about.” Relief washed over me like sweet Pugliese primitivo. I should have known better. There was a slight charge for current accounts every month but they threw in a credit card and 50 withdrawals from other banks’ machines a year so I figured it made sense. I bought it, I lapped it all up like dome sap of a religious fanatic because I wanted to believe. I had to believe, goddammit.I slipped my new cashpoint card into my wallet next to my UK Barclays debit card and my Barclaycard – home at last, thank God, I’m home at last. Soon enough, clouds began to gather, a rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance. Within a few weeks, I applied for a €2500 loan to buy a new scooter. It was flatly refused, no explanations. I protested, my complaints were answered with a standard letter addressed to someone called Dear Customer after about 6 weeks. Barclays was beginning to feel a bit more like Baacleis, if you know what I mean. I stomached it, bought the bike with my own savings and figured “Oh well.” I clung on desperately to the belief that my bank was the same bank I'd been with for 20 years. After a month or so, my credit card still hadn’t come through. I waited. I called. I emailed. After 5 months, in a strop of biblical proportions, I told them to stick the card where the sun don’t shine. Yep, exactly there, clenched buttcheeks or not. And now this letter. Exactly the same as any letter from any Italian bank, so long you’d have to take the day off work and employ a legal expert to extract any sense from it. They were so damn sure that I wasn’t going to read it that they even forgot to print page 5 (of 15). You gotta hand it to them. ‘Cos if you don’t, they’ll just take it anyway. Your soul and your savings. So there you go. When is Barclays not Barclays? I don’t mean to interrupt the fervent back-slapping at Barclays for yet another year of record profits, but the answer to the question is palese, clear as crystal: when it’s Barclays Italia. Ma che vuoi fa’? What exactly are you gonna do? There’s not much you can do. Apart from scream to high heaven every time something little happens because your stress threshold is so low and because you quite frankly can’t take it anymore and not because you like complaining but just because you thought Italy was a first world country and of course if I was living in India I wouldn’t complain about the inexplicable blackouts and the state of the roads because that would be ridiculous but here it’s just a non-stop rollercoaster ride of incazzature and ohhhhhhh, okay, give me some tits and arse on telly and let’s go to the beach and crack open some beers.

Double take

The family cheques came through, by the way. Back-dated to 20 months ago, too, to when the baby was born. Straight onto my pay slip for January. Needless to say, my boss gave it a double take - he wasn't best pleased at having to fork out bucketleads of cash! We've come to an arrangement. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse (very cheap, I know). A nice, tidy €130 a month will come in handy. Fags and booze money at least (ho-ho). And, lo and behold, my mother-in-law was right, again - you've gotta have some faith in the system sometimes. I guess. Just occasionally. But if you could see me, you'd see me looking like Woody Allen again though, at the end of his mesmeric Manhatten. Not everyone gets corrupted (Go on, son, you can do it).