In this day and age of machismo, moments that make grown men cry are hard to come by. Yet, the men from a tiny Scandinavian country with more volcanoes than professional footballers managed to put together a solemn, dignified pose for a group picture after their dreams had been brutally snuffed out by the host nation at the Stade de France in Euro 2016.
Neutrals following the team from Iceland would have been proud of them by association. Their fans, almost 10 per cent of the country’s population of 360,000, had travelled to France to cheer them on. Iceland’s players acknowledge this fact by going over to their supporter base after every match irrespective of the result.
The quarterfinal defeat to France was not a total loss. What threatened to be a riot at halftime, with the score reading 4-0 to Les Blues, had a more respectable look of 5-2, though in favour of Didier Deschamps’ men, at fulltime.
A shellacking might have been on the cards had Iceland been resigned to their fate or if their shoulders had drooped. The dynamic nature of modern-day football has seen teams play at a higher intensity than ever before. A lack of response towards an adverse situation – a sending-off or trailing to an opposition goal – could potentially be fatal.
Lack of collective will
That this fact is lost on Iceland’s opponents in the pre-quarters, England, gives further credence to the hypothesis that the sense of collective will to triumph in the face of adversity simply does not exist or has never been instilled in English training camps.
While commentators on television were making allusions to rock-bottom scenarios for Her Majesty’s Team during the second half of the England-Iceland match, they weren’t far off from the truth in terms of the absurdity of the defeat, given the gulf in resources between the two nations.
England's captain Wayne Rooney earns approximately one pound per week for each of Iceland’s citizens. Rooney’s Twitter account has 13.3 million followers, while Iceland FA’s official handle, @footballiceland has 18,000. England and their team of overpaid prima donnas had failed to beat Iceland despite having 70 minutes to force a way back.
Poorer cousins?
While England stuttered and faltered, their "poorer cousins" Wales were making a mockery of an early setback, their underdog status and the Fifa world rankings all at once, blazing a trail to the semi-finals. The Dragons responded to a 13th-minute goal by Belgium in rousing fashion, scoring three goals to oust the highly-fancied Belgians en route to becoming the smallest nation to reach a Euro semi-final.
The beauty of the victory lay in the fact that the goals came from a Swansea defender, Ashley Williams, a Burnley striker, Sam Vokes, and a free agent, Hal Robson-Kanu, who arguably bagged the best of the lot.
In their own way, these players were outperforming their more illustrious English counterparts, handpicked from the top clubs of Premier League. Yet, the best part of Wales, who also have big club players of their own in the form of Aaron Ramsey, Gareth Bale and Joe Allen, is that they play with a collective consciousness every time they’re out there on the hallowed turf.
Each player, whether big or small in stature, knows his place in this team and there is a total lack of individual ego. This can be easily verified by Bale’s vociferous celebrations every time his team scores a goal. Yet, things weren’t always this smooth.
From wilderness to greatness
Manager Gary Speed’s death at the tender age of 42 and a footballing nadir, achieved in the form of a 6-1 defeat at the hands of Serbia in September 2012, had cast a pall of gloom over his successor, Chris Coleman and his men, whose ranking had plummeted to 117th in the world.
Coleman rallied and his response was to ask the team to forget about the past. He removed the burden of captaincy from young Ramsey’s shoulders, thus freeing him up mentally, and handed it to Williams, a natural-born leader known for his aggression and his tenacity. Wales had been pushed to the wall by circumstances, and they responded magnificently.
Wales’s journey from footballing wilderness to the verge of greatness should be documented for every English player to see and marvel at. While England have never won two knockout matches on the trot throughout their European Championship history, Wales have managed that in their first attempt.
"England never learn"
England’s policy of merely shoehorning players into the team based on historical performances has not changed over the years. Footballing experts say "England never learn", but the English Football Association’s stubborn refusal to pick fitter, in-form players from non-elite clubs has never been questioned by puppet managers, including Roy Hodgson.
The decision to pick a half-fit Wilshere over two chaps in the form of their lives – Mark Noble and Danny Drinkwater – remains one of the worst managerial decisions of this tournament. In contrast, Wales have nine players supplied by the second-tier of English football, the Championship.
Coleman’s enormous belief in these players is epitomised by his putting on Vokes for the final part of the game, with Wales leading 2-1, only for the substitute to wrap up the game in stirring fashion. With his team trailing 2-1, Hodgson threw Marcus Rashford on in the 87th minute, giving him barely five minutes on the pitch.
The teenager played the rest of the match out at a fast pace, harrying opposition defenders till the final whistle. Hodgson’s phobia of being beaten with a Rashford-shaped stick, had he put the teenager on much earlier, might have been the conservative in him convincing the football-watching public to stand by his decision.
But that conservatism proved fatal as a youthful Rashford, in place of a bumbling Rooney, with even 20 minutes to go, might have dragged the English back into the game.
Fear of the unknown
An absurd failure to shake things up when most required cannot be masked by the inclination towards a safe approach – a lack of immediate action mandates that the safe approach be considered regressive, while faith in an established order is only secure as long as the order is functional and not acting as a hindrance, as Hodgson found out after the time for a substitution had passed.
England’s fear of the unknown in the face of the global T-shirt selling superstar will have to be shed. This change will only arise through the appointment of a manager who doesn’t simply toe the English FA’s line.
The hype around English teams will also have to dissipate as it is absurd and uncalled for. A team that has not managed to reach the semi-final of a major tournament since 1996 must not be fawned over or tipped to win every tournament and must be rebuilt from scratch.
Flawed system
A man with the situational alacrity and tactical flexibility of Hodgson’s calibre presiding over three tournaments should merit scrutiny and discussion. It points to a deeper malaise in the system: the ready acceptance of mediocrity with a false show of ambition for the quote-hungry media and the ever-expectant fans.
In the absence of technical nous and know-how in the dug-out, players such as Raheem Sterling, who are thrust into the limelight at a tender age, will always be hung out to dry and crucified by a deeply faulty review system back in England, crying for a scapegoat and more interested in apportioning blame rather than in plugging the holes in the system itself.
The infusion of club-like togetherness is what makes smaller, successful nations at major tournaments tick. England would do well to imbibe this from the Welsh, who aren’t quite finished yet, not by a long shot. As Bale and his Welsh brethren dream the impossible dream, Cristiano Ronaldo and his disjointed Portugal team may not be third-time lucky in the knockout phase.
The best the English can do is to watch on their tellies, sipping their cups of tea back home.