Re: World Soccer XVIII: A New Season
Yep, totally agreed on that point. As such, I have no problem with him trying to get him to come to the World Cup. It's this continued flirtation that I have a problem with. Do they really need Paul Scholes to qualify for EURO 2012? Are teams like Montenegro and Bulgaria really going to put up that much of a fight? Bringing him in now does nothing to help England's long term situation, just putting a bandage over the gaping wound.
To an extent, sure, this is when you need to give your Jack Wilsheres and your Kieran Gibbses and your Tom Huddlestones a chance make an impression, sure. But tinkering too much and having a group of players with no chemistry with one another is what got them into this mess, no? Contrast that (to repeat an example) with Spain, where everyone is on the same page; you could say the same thing about Germany too. Whereas Argentina were another team where they had a lot of talented players who didn't really know how to work together on the same field, and look where it got them.
I recently read the autobiography of George Cohen, the longtime Fulham player who was also the right back for England's 1966 World Cup winning team. The book was published in 2003, so the 2002 World Cup (where England were knocked out in the quarterfinal by eventual champions Brazil in the game where Ronaldinho scored that ridiculous free kick goal) was fresh in everyone's mind. He offered a pretty strong critique of Sven's approach in part because he felt that there wasn't enough stability in the squad for the players to have any chemistry with one another, as contrasted with the approach Alf Ramsey had before the 1966 World Cup of getting his squad reasonably settled well in advance and using the buildup to the tournament to get them to develop as a group.
The point of bringing that up is - if Capello thinks Scholes will be able to contribute in Euro 2012 (which would be quite a feat at 37, but that's besides the point, let's say for the sake of argument that Capello thinks he can and that he doesn't just want to call him up to make the guy feel good about himself and sell some tickets), it doesn't make sense to wait until the spring of 2012 when Scholes is thinking about retirement and throw him into a few pre-tournament friendlies with teammates he's not familiar with, he's got to be involved sooner. I mean, part of the reason he's such a good passer for ManU (Capello witnessed on Sunday) is the same as part of the reason why Xavi is so effective for Barcelona and for Spain - he knows where his teammates are going to be, where they're going to make runs, where they like to receive the ball. That's a non-factor if he doesn't have time to get to know his teammates, and when better than a match against Montenegro that England are going to win regardless so there's no harm from a few misplaced passes here and there?
