When the Steves come
I am a big-match football spectator (all you big-match players rest in peace), so I lack any amount of in-depth knowledge, and so it enables me to ask some very naive questions. One such question arose last Saturday after watching Liverpool defeat West Ham United in the FA Cup Final: why isn't Steven Gerrard (in a manner reminiscent of a former quizzing teammate, I feel like immediately creating an email id called "stevengerrardisgod") the captain of the England team?Each time, I see Gerrard let loose a shot on target after having arrived in the opposing box from deep in the Liverpool half on what must have been the bullet-train in top gear, I wonder why David Beckham, that dead-ball-deep-crossing-tattoo-and-much-more-fetishist, has the armband. Harish immediately attributed it to the high-profile sponsors of the Real Madrid galactico-in-meltdown, and in this case, I find his conspiracy theory quite plausible.
Coach-designate Steve McClaren has been cautious on the Beckham captaincy, not wishing to rock the boat before the World Cup, but anyone, apart from Ericsson (a bit of a glamour-boy himself), should be able to put Gerrard in charge for a while and see if English fortunes change. He will turn 26 in two weeks and will have enough time to make something of the team, and seems more than capable of carrying a team on his head. I think I prefer these English captains in the Shearer mould.
3 comments:
Remember that while discussing captaincy in football, one ust chuck out the notions of captainsin cricket. Captains are far less influential in Football than in cricket. It simply does not make sense to change an established captain just because there is another better. The 'best player should be captain' argument is a non sequito, even in cricket.
Thirdly, pliss not to underestimate Señor Beckham's abilities - please to go beyond big-match syndrome and watch Real Madrid's last match in the Spanish league. Gerrard is the in-form player (won the player of the year) - so comparing an iniform player to one that has played well over years is very unfair.
(I stop here - I can go on rambling about this for ages...)
voila, the return of the typo-master !!
It is very rare to find a captain like Cantona/Keane.
Beckham might be the captain because of the sponsors involved but he is a great player.You might have some 'experts' criticising his lack of dribbling skills etc. but IMO, the opinion is more of a judgement on his off-field antics than his on-field utility.I am not sure if he is captaincy material but then it is definitely difficult to find a captain of a national team who can be as influencial as a club captain because the captain in a football team has to exhort players to come up with a killer performance - this is more of a personal appeal/threat/plea than the kind of tactical play it is in cricket.This happens because of personal equations and the national team members don't play together long enough to develop that spirit which all the successful clubs do.
Of course all these rules go for a toss if your name is spelled as Zinedine Zidane.(Refer to re-ignited qualification campaign of France, Henry's goal against Ireland)
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