Last summer’s off-the-field action in Belgium nearly spelt England’s expulsion from the Euro 2000 tournament. It’s only a minority that likes to swing bar stools, but the distaste for abroad runs deep. “We are just a very chauvinistic country,” says Sheila Spiers of the Football Supporters Association. But the fan’s hate list doesn’t end with foreigners. Near the top stands any England manager of the national side who fails to recreate the country’s glory days. One defeat and the fans–cheerled by the tabloid press–are demanding the manager’s head. “You can’t win with the tabloids,” says Spiers. “In the end they hound everyone out of the job.”
That makes Sven-Goran Eriksson a brave man. Some time early next year, the Swedish manager–still under contract to the Italian club Lazio–will take charge of the English national team. Yes, England has entrusted the task of rebuilding its flagging reputation to a foreigner. And it won’t be easy. A string of dismal performances in the World Cup qualifying round has brought a real risk that the country that gave the world soccer could be watching the 2002 championships on TV. The outgoing manager, Kevin Keegan, quit this fall after a humiliating 0-0 draw with Finland and Eriksson must know that he’s one step from the scaffold. “If he manages to qualify us for the World Cup he is our savior,” says Sam Johnstone of the Football Research Unit at Liverpool University. “If he fails, he’s a ready-made scapegoat.”
Predictably, Eriksson’s welcome from the tabloid press has had all the charm of a late tackle. No matter that his record far outshines any native candidate–he has transformed club sides in Sweden, Portugal and Italy–the guy isn’t English. “All that is left for the football men of England is to pull the sack-cloth up over our heads and let the grave-dancers pile on the ashes,” wrote Daily Mail columnist Jeff Powell. “We’ve sold our birthright down the river to a nation of 7 million skiers and hammer-throwers who spend half their lives in darkness.”
OK, so far there’s been little of the personal animosity that helped to bring down Eriksson’s predecessors. But the very idea of an outsider picking the squad offends the loyalist. “The appointment of a foreign coach beggars belief,” said John Barnwell, head of the League Managers Association. “This is another example of us giving away our national treasures to Europe.”
The vehemence of anti-Eriksson feeling has in turn prompted more soul-searching. If English soccer serves as a mirror of the national soul, wail the columnists, the reflection is depressing. It shows the English as inward-looking, boorish and obsessed with reliving past triumphs on or off the field. Memories of victory over Germany in the 1966 World Cup–the last time England picked up a serious trophy–are somehow confused with memories of World War II, blocking the nation’s emotional development. In the run-up to England’s semifinal match against Germany in the 1996 European Championships, the Mirror proposed sending a tank round to the German embassy to demand surrender.
The players can be no better than the fans. When an English player finds work with a foreign club some unlovely national traits often become horribly public. Who’s forgotten the public wine-swilling, pasta-slopping exploits of Paul Gascoigne, the superstar striker of the 90s, when he was playing for Lazio in Rome? England, say the doomsayers, has become a country that exults in its own boorishness and distrusts signs of sophistication. Not least among Eriksson’s problems may be his waekness for well-cut suits, his mastery of a foreign language (he speaks four, English included) and his taste for Tibetan verse.
Worse still, England’s need for Eriksson could be eveidence of a wider and more depressing trend. When a British enterprise is failing it’s becoming customary to seek help overseas. The country’s best-known retailer, Marks & Spencer, last year called in Belgian Luc Vandevelde as CEO in an attempt to woo back customers after sales went into freefall. It took the American Michael Kaiser to turn around the fortunes of the Royal Opera House. When attendance figures at the Millennium Dome hit calamity point the organizers recruited a Disney veteran from France, Pierre-Yves Gerbeau. Even the English cricket team is now managed by Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher. Small wonder that national self-esteem has suffered.
On the other hand, those appointments might just be evidence that the English can take a pragmatic line when success is at stake. Even in football. These days, Manchester United is run by a Scot; Arsenal by a Frenchman. An English-Saxon name can be hard to find in the line-up of many Premier League sides as overseas players flood into the game. Almost anything–including a foreign passport–can be forgiven as long as the trophy case is kept well-stocked.
“If Sven-Goran Eriksson gets us into the World Cup Finals, let alone wins it, it wouldn’t matter if he came from Mars,” editorialized the Mirror in a rare show of common sense. Who knows, he might even help England shed the dead weight of past glory. “We mustn’t kid ourselves,” said Adam Crozier, the Football Association boss responsible for Eriksson’s recruitment. “If we have learnt one thing it’s that we have to work for the future.” Maybe so, but it will take plenty of goals to persuade the fans.
