Sometimes You Have To Go Back To Move Forward

Nobody likes change. Unless it’s good change of course.

But until we know whether it is good, in that experimental phase that all change goes through while we’re making our minds up, the default position has to be that it:

a) It isn’t needed
b) It won’t work

There is a ‘we’ve always done it like this’ attitude that is as prevalent in football as it is in any other part of life. When someone does, or even wants to do, anything out of the ordinary they are met with derision, incredulity and reasons to delay. VAR anyone?

‘Why would you want to do that?’ they’ll say even if it’s to make things better.

So, this Nations League, then? That won’t work. Will it?

I’m not sure anyone can argue that it wasn’t needed. Friendlies – the six-substitution variety – were suffering a slow and sorry decline. Not only the second half of stop-start changes but the way they were approached too, with testimonial match pace and a lack of real commitment from either team.

Of course, players don’t want to miss club games, but what does an international manager seriously learn from a game where everyone isn’t going full tilt? How does anything that happens in a game that means nothing have any relevance in a game on which everything rests?

Long term, the only answer would have been to scrap them altogether. With little or no appetite, and the clubs flexing ever more powerful muscles all the time, there was no future for friendlies – not in the sense of preparation for major competitions anyway.

So, the idea of replacing them with a competition of its own was an intriguing one. I’ll declare now, I was a fan from the start. I like international football and the contrast it provides to the grind of the domestic league and cup programmes. I believe international breaks are just that – a break – that makes us appreciate club football more because it’s not force-fed down our throats 24/7. And there is something quite traditional and appealing about pitting countries against each other to see who is best, while the leagues are full of teams that resemble FIFA19 wet dreams with their globally assembled squads.

But… b) would it work?

I think it’s a resounding yes to that question too, at the moment. Except possibly if you’re German. What’s not to like about a format where almost every game has meaning and prepares teams for exactly what they might face in a World Cup or Euros group or knock out?

Take Sunday’s match at Wembley. For a start, it’s unlikely that England would choose to play a friendly at home to Croatia to begin with; it’s just not glamourous enough, so these matches where you play who you’re drawn against are a proper test.

Then there is the three-team group set up with promotion and relegation. Whoever came up with that at UEFA deserves to be taken to the nearest café and be able to choose whatever coffee and cake they want, because it’s a simple yet incredibly potent idea.

It virtually wipes out the dead rubber, rather making every game have significance for at least one team. On Sunday, it was the same jeopardy for both teams. Every goal changed the way the group worked. The standings went from Spain/England to Croatia/Spain to Spain/Croatia and finally England/Spain in the space of thirty second-half minutes.

Even the Spanish, readying themselves for a meaningless friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina, must have been jumping up and down nearly as much as the fans at the stadium. After Harry Kane’s late winner, it was England that prevailed but if he’d missed, England would have been relegated and playing the likes of the Czech Republic, Sweden, Austria and Germany (snigger) next time.

But he didn’t. And they aren’t. Mainly because on Sunday, England became a team that have found a way to win ugly. After the World-Cup-alike strong first-half that should have yielded a two-goal advantage but didn’t, they found themselves behind against a team that have become a sort of bogey side in the last dozen years. With just twelves minutes to go, England looked like they’d run out of ideas as well as the ability to pass the ball over more than five yards. There was a hint of it being déjà vu all over again.

But rather than just fizzle out in front of a manager with a brolly, or a waistcoat, they did what teams that can win ugly do. Hurl a long throw into the box and hope for the best.

Few, other than some of England’s former stars who never quite found this level of success if what Wayne Rooney says is right, would begrudge this team their moment in the Portuguese sun next June. Winning ugly was something that generation didn’t quite know how to do, preferring glorious failure and ‘if onlys’ over long throws.

It wasn’t just at Wembley either that the Nations League bug bit. In Switzerland, the home team needed four unanswered goals to overturn a Belgian team that were running away with the match and their group. They inexplicably got not four, but five goals – to join England and the hosts in Portugal – but would that have ever happened in a friendly?

We’ve also witnessed a Dutch resurgence under Ronald Koeman and more evidence of Germany on the slide. That’s part of the beauty of the Nations League – it separates those that really want it from those that don’t. If you treat the games like they are still friendlies, even glorified ones, you’ll soon come a cropper.

And it’s not just at the elite end. Scotland and Israel have their own winner-takes-all battle this week while Wales and Denmark fought theirs on Friday. Even the few dead-rubbers aren’t really dead; placings go towards the main qualifying draw and some teams will still end up in the Euro 2020 play-offs even if they didn’t win their section, so there is all to play for right till the end, to ensure they finish as high as possible.

But that’s for another day. Now, England’s young lions (plus Fabian Delph) can look forward to another summer of tournament football. OK, so it’s not a biggie. But it’s another semi-final and after twenty-two years without one, we are in danger of being spoiled by them now.

One social media (clue, right there) scribe said that with this new Nations League, UEFA had [inadvertently] discovered a competition that was better than the Euros. What’s that, a group format to qualify then four teams battling it out in one country with semi-finals, a third place play off and final?

They haven’t discovered it. Inadvertently or not. They had it once already.

That was what the European Championships looked like before Europe became so much bigger and the Euros expanded to eight, then sixteen and finally twenty-four nations. When Antonin Panenka did his little chipped penalty that now bears his name to win the 1976 shootout, it was in that exact format, played in what was then, Yugoslavia.

That was also, out of interest, the first time that an international match was decided by penalty kicks.

So, if we’re going back to the future, why not introduce some more change in Portugal and replace the penalty shootout with something else?

In 1976, there was a provision for a replay, two days later – but decided against by the teams (Czechoslovakia and West Germany) – but that wouldn’t work in the instant gratification world we live in today. In the days before penalties were introduced, they went with a good old-fashioned toss of a coin.

But, what if someone forgot to bring a coin? What would they do then? Apart from banning them for three weeks, of course?

I can see it now (it’s probably not hard to spot where this is headed)…

2019 Nations League Final
Portugal 1-1 England (England win by RPS)

That’s rock, paper, scissors for anyone not up to speed. What’s that? It’ll never work? That’s what they said about Panenka’s penalty.

And anyway….don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. No-one likes change at first, remember?