Joe Lovejoy - Sven-Goran Eriksson

‘In one sense, he was very unlucky against Portugal. Had Sol Campbell’s legitimate goal stood, we would have been in the semi-finals. Having said that, Portugal were the better side on the night, and if Sven has learned anything, it is probably to be a bit more positive, particularly with substitutions. The decision to send on Phil Neville in central midfield was a negative move, and handed the initiative to Portugal. He is essentially a full-back, and doesn’t have the energy to get up and down in international football.

‘The tournament proved that it is becoming harder to sit back and defend a 1–0 lead. It is not just England who were caught out, Italy defended very deep against Sweden and conceded an equalizer late on, as did Germany against Holland. The game has changed in the last ten years, and every country seems to have a supply of quick, talented attacking players. These days, the best way to keep a lead is to try to score the second goal, rather than lock the back door as we tried to do against France and Portugal.

‘I was so disappointed when we came back from Euro ’88 having lost all three matches, but two years later we reached the World Cup semi-finals, with a lot of the same players hitting top form whereas in ’88 they couldn’t get going. The message is that to rip up and start again now would be self-defeating. The best solution is to give Sven and his men another chance to show that, with a little more devil may care and confidence in their own technical ability, England can compete with the best.’

The players’ view was articulated by Gary Neville, England’s longest-serving international, who had a good tournament, on and off the field. Whenever the team needed real leadership, such as after the defeat by France, it was usually Neville who provided it, with the uplifting dressing-room oratory that was so conspicuously lacking in others. ‘Gutted’ by the outcome in Portugal, the Manchester United defender said: ‘We were totally sincere when we told everybody we could win it, and I do believe that we were only just the wrong side of a thin dividing line. But at the end of the day, we weren’t quite good enough. Just for once, it would be nice to get those close calls that can decide a big game, like the goal Sol had disallowed, but the fact is that we didn’t have that extra edge to get us through.

‘There will be a big debate now about whether we are good enough, whether we were fooling ourselves when we said we could win the competition. Portugal did keep the ball well, and put us under amazing pressure, but I don’t think we should beat ourselves up about our passing after every tournament. I watched Portugal dominate Spain in just the same way.

‘This team has passed the ball as decisively and confidently as any of the England teams I have been involved in. We always seem to have to find a scapegoat when we go out of any tournament, but nobody deserves to be nailed. We just need to keep taking more of the strides forward that we have already made under Sven, who is the best England manager I have known.’

Sven-Goran Eriksson rejected criticisms of his ‘negativity’, but as significant as Rio Ferdinand’s suspension from Euro 2004, or the injury sustained by Wayne Rooney in the quarter-finals, was the absence of Eriksson’s assistant, Brian Kidd, who was recovering from prostate cancer. Kidd was a positive influence, an attack-minded coach, whose reaction to adversity was to throw another man forward. Terry Venables said of their time together at Leeds: ‘Whenever we were in trouble in a game, Brian would always say: “Let’s go 4–3–3.”’ When Kidd was not fit enough to travel to Portugal, he was replaced by Steve McClaren, who is much more defence-orientated. His inclination was to concentrate on organizing the back four, where he had mixed success. Three of England’s defenders – Gary Neville, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell – shone throughout, but as a unit the defence operated much too deep, and proved alarmingly fallible at set pieces. That Kidd was missed is beyond question.

Eriksson felt England had been unlucky, and said the difference between success and failure was infinitesimal. A debriefing went as follows:

Question: What more do England need to win a major tournament?

Eriksson: Very little really. A little bit of luck would be nice. I still think we can win the next World Cup.

Q: Will you be around to try in 2006?

Eriksson: If it is the wish of the English people, or the FA, I will leave, but I don’t think that is the case. When I called the players together for a meeting the day after we lost to Portugal, I talked about 2006, and said I was committed to taking them to Germany.

Q: Were mistakes made in selection?

Eriksson: Absolutely not. The 11 players I picked were the best available, and the team will not change much before 2006.

Q: Are new players needed to take the team forward?

Eriksson: No, definitely not. This generation is still young, and can play at the 2006 World Cup for sure, and most of them in 2008. How old is David Beckham? Twenty-nine. At 31 he should be even better. Steven Gerrard is still only 24. It’s too early to talk about a new generation. Some new players will come in, but not many. Jermain Defoe will get a chance. He’s quick and a goalscorer. And we’ll have a look at Chris Kirkland in goal – if he stays fit for once.

Q: Before the tournament, England’s midfield was regarded as a strong suit. What went wrong?

Eriksson: I don’t agree that it did go wrong. All of them could have played a bit better, but their discipline was good, and they will be in the squad – the team probably – for years to come. In the quarter-final their legs went because we were chasing the ball so much. Steven Gerrard had cramp, and couldn’t do the running any more, so we had to put another player on.

Q: Beckham had looked more tired than Gerrard. Was his condition a disappointment?

Eriksson: When we went to Sardinia to prepare, we found that four or five players needed to work on their fitness. He was one of them. He worked hard at it, but maybe it was a bit too late. We have seen Beckham better, there’s no doubt about that.

Q: Why did you not bring him off?

Eriksson: If I could have changed one more player in the quarter-final it would have been Beckham, but they were all tired, and I’d made my three substitutions. Remember, Portugal had two more days to recover between games, and at some stage we were always going to pay for that.

Q: Why did England sit back and invite pressure?

Eriksson: Why didn’t we attack? It was the same as the Brazil game in Shizuoka. I wanted us to attack, but to do it you have to have the ball. If you don’t have it, you have to defend, it’s as simple as that. I like to defend high up the pitch, not on our 18–yard line, but if you come up against a team who are gambling a bit, you have to defend deeper. Also, if you are tired, as we were, you make more mistakes and keep the ball less, and it becomes very difficult. Playing defensively was not a tactic, not something we set out to do.

Q: So it was not all down to bad luck, England needed to retain possession more?

Eriksson: We work on that every time we have a practice session. We concentrate on ball retention in the warm-up, and also as part of the main session. I think we are improving at it, but Portugal, technically, are the best team in Europe, just like two years ago, when Brazil were technically the best team in the world when we played them. When I use the word technically, I mean they are best at keeping the ball.