FRANCE 98 – General Media News Template
England coach Glenn Hoddle woke up Sunday to a hostile British press who slammed his team’s performance in the dour and scrappy goalless draw against Saudi Arabia at Wembley on Saturday. There was not a favourable headline to be found in the nation’s newspapers after England’s worst performance since Hoddle took charge 22 months ago.
England, who might have lost had the Saudis shown greater composure in front of goal, were uncertain in defence, sloppy in midfield and lacked the killer touch in attack.
Saudi Arabia are 125-1 rank outsiders to win the World Cup but Hoddle admitted he has something to learn from the methods of their coach, the Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira.
Parreira, who steered Brazil to World Cup glory in USA ‘94, was originally vilified in his native land when he sacrificed traditional style for a more pragmatic approach.
“Parreira won the World Cup with Brazil,” pointed out Hoddle, who leaves with his 29 remaining players for the pre-France training camp in Spain and final warm-up games against Morocco and Belgium on Monday. “They’d gone 20 years but he did it with a team with two players who could do the defensive job in midfield, Mauro Silva and Dunga.” He knew he had to get organised defensively to win the World Cup because that’s the way the game’s gone, squeezing tight, far more organised.
“Brazil won the World Cup like that, Germany won Euro 96 with Dieter Eilts. And the times when we’ve played with Batty and Paul Ince like that-Georgia, Poland and Rome-it’s been very difficult to break us down.”
Hoddle admitted that tightness had been missing against the lightweight but well-organised Saudis, the idea of allowing David Beckham and Paul Scholes to “slide off” around Batty not working. With workrate down, England could not pressure the ball in the important central area, meaning they were breaking from so deep the Saudis had time to retreat in numbers.
And in addition, the midfield were unwilling to track back, leaving Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate and Gary Neville exposed to Saudi counters at the back.
“We weren’t really giving it the 100 percent gun defensively,” conceded Hoddle. “There was a lack of assertiveness. We didn’t come alive when they had the ball at all.”In a friendly you sometimes don’t want to put the defensive work in. “There were too many times when the back three were left one on one. When Ince and Batty are in there, that doesn’t happen.”They shut the corridor between the midfield and the back players and make us much tighter.”
Fear of picking up a World Cup-wrecking injury was another element in the sub-par showing, agreed Hoddle, as was a lack of competitive incisiveness that saw England’s chances go begging. Substitutes Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand and Paul Gascoigne-with a fierce 30-yard drive-all might have stolen it late-on but the blank scoreline saw an almost apologetic feel to the “lap of appreciation” to the Wembley fans.
“We didn’t have the cutting edge in the last third we hope we’ll have in France, when we’ll go in all guns blazing,” said Hoddle.