The Hindu : Sport / Football : Managers miss the wood for the trees

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Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004

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Sport - Football

Managers miss the wood for the trees

By Brian Glanville

LISBON, JUNE 22. Managers still make one wonder. Forever failing to see the wood for the trees. In this European tournament, examples continue to occur. Dutch fans are still asking what possessed the much criticised coach Dick Advocaat to leave out a dazzling young left winger Robben, soon on his way to Chelsea, out of the match against Germany and then, when he plucked up the courage to start him against the Czechs with such conspicuous results, pulling him off after just 58 minutes to put on a defender in Bosvelt, who made no impact at all.

After the game Advocaat tried to excuse himself on the grounds that Robben hadn't played for weeks that he was tiring. Hardly as tired one felt as the right flank of the Czech defence, which he had given such a run around from the start, being instrumental in setting up both the goals whereby the Dutch led 2-0. Advocaat we know had been criticised by another Dutch coach for his cautious disposition and this was surely proof of it.

But what of Rudi Voller, the German coach and another to look a gift horse in the mouth; in the shape of the blond teenager, Bastian Schweinsteiger? In the first game drawn 1-1 against the Dutch as in the second, the Bayern Munich youngster appeared only in the second half. But on each occasion, he galvanised his team with his splendidly fresh and positive approach, appearing now on the left of the attack, now on the right, always ready to take on and beat an opponent.

The kind of thing that few of his teammates were prepared to do and something which should surely have been made available from the start. Schweinsteiger in fact was a very late choice indeed for the German squad and got in by default only when others, who were injured, dropped out. Once again, surely, he should have been in from the first.

The Latvians, who held the Germans to that goalless draw and gave the Czechs such a hard run for their money, have surely surpassed themselves. I saw both games and was fascinated by the metamorphosis of so many players who had tried but failed in the English league, prominent among them the big blond centre back, Igor Stepanovs, who looked clumsily vulnerable in his bleak time at Arsenal but was certainly the rock of his defence in these two matches. Even if in the first half he did get taken to the cleaners by Bobic, who went on to force a noteworthy save by Kolinko.

And thereby hangs another odd English tale. For Kolinko was playing for Cyrstal Palace, the South East London side, when, sitting on the subs' bench during a game, he undiplomatically laughed when his team conceded a goal.

His outraged manager, Trevor Francis, usually a mild sort of fellow, slapped him across the face and that was virtually the end of Kolinko's English career. But against the Germans, bar one falter early on, when he allowed Bernd Schneider's left-footed curler from the right to drift across him, unpunished, he looked increasingly calm and secure, stopping shots from the likes of Michael Ballack, the hub of the German midfield, and, in the closing stages, when the Germans were putting on pressure, time and again catching the high crosses. He was certainly going to get a pat on the back rather than a slap on the face from his manager, Aleksanders Starkovs.

The brisk midfielder Rubins was another to make scant impact at Palace, while the captain and midfielder, Astafjevs, had a short and uneventful spell at Bristol Rovers. When I asked Starkovs how he had managed to rehabilitate these players, he replied with a smile that this was a secret he meant to keep, so that he could stay in work.

He had a special eulogy for Maris Verpakovskis, his dynamic Dynamo Kiev centre forward, who has his eye on a contract in Italy or Spain, saying that nothing like the striker's superb burst in the first half, which took him clean through the centre of the German defence, had been seen in the tournament. Asked by a Latvian journalist why his attackers didn't pass more, Starkovs properly replied that it wasn't what he wanted them to do, he wanted them to go for goal. Refreshing indeed to hear in these cautious days.

And, indeed, caution seemed to be watchword for Germany both as expressed by Voller and by Ballack. Each emphasised concern lest Latvia be given the chance of a dangerous breakaway. It made sense up to a point, but when you think of the dominant German teams of the past, with Helmut Rahn, Fritz Walter, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and the rest, it saddens you a little.

Such teams went out to win the game without worrying excessively about the opposition, least of all when it was a modest as Latvia's. And it wasn't very fair for Voller to single out Miroslav Klose, a late attacking sub, out for heading a last moment chance hopelessly wide. He usually put such chances away, lamented Voller. Well, I remember seeing Klose get four against feeble Saudi Arabia in Japan a couple of years ago, but the chance at Porto didn't seem quite so simple to me.

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