Hold the Hype

Picture the scene. It is half time in England’s friendly against Greece at Old Trafford, the first game under new manager Steve McClaren. England are winning 4-0 and Gary Lineker, having coaxed comments from a team of pundits consisting of Alan Shearer, Lee Dixon and Ian Wright, is almost ready to hand back to the gantry when the ex-Arsenal full back says modestly, referring to the Greek strike force: “Can I just say I could play centre half to those three tonight.”

More should have been made of that remark, because it provided exactly what was needed, a sense of perspective at a time when there was a real danger of over-reaction, as relief turned to delight and quickly gave way to rampant euphoria. You could almost feel the headlines growing, as words like ‘rout’, ‘romp’, ‘rampage’ and ‘crush’ were marshalled to describe the ‘dream’ as England ‘annihilated’ the reigning European Champions.

The truth is that England were organised and industrious, their movement was good and they passed and kept the ball better than they had ever done under Sven Goran Eriksson. But their 4-0 half time lead owed more to the embarrassing incompetence of the Greeks than their own attacking flair. Terry’s opening goal came courtesy of an appalling mistake by the keeper, who flapped at a cross, but he had little chance with the second, an own goal which was deflected over his head (though no doubt Lampard will audaciously claim some credit for it). After Lampard had failed from 8 yards, Crouch was free to poach the third because there wasn’t a Greek defender anywhere near him and the same circumstances allowed the lanky frontman to knock in Downing’s cross from 5 yards to secure England’s fourth.

After the interval, 4-0 gave way to 0-0, as the second half produced many substitutions and an almost competitive display from the Greeks, who managed to appear more confident defensively and just good enough going forward for Ashley Cole to have to kick two efforts off the goal line in quick succession. Overall, there was time to assess England’s team performance and to feel cautious optimism about the future, which hopefully will be reinforced by equally impressive performances against more testing opposition. And there was good reason to applaud in particular the outstanding contributions of Terry, Hargreaves and Gerrard, while harbouring serious reservations about Defoe, who never looked likely to justify McClaren’s faith in him, and Lampard, who managed to appear better than he was in Germany largely because it would have been almost impossible to be any worse.