Every international tournament needs a catchcry. France 98, for instance, was 'What the fuck's that kid doing on the field?' As applicable immediately before Wee Michael Owen's bullshit 'carving through midfield then nailing one from 30 yards' goal against the Argies in the first knockout stage. In the same vein, EURO 2008's would probably be 'What the fuck's that kid doing on the bench trying to coach an international team?'
It's been an interesting development in recent years that high-profile retired players looking to make the move into coaching have gone into international management as a means of getting experience for the apparently more serious gig of club management. Frank Rijkaard got the Barcelona gig on the back of his EURO 2000 efforts with the Dutch national team, which was his first proper coaching gig. Similarly Marco van Basten had done fuck all really before getting the keys to the Dutch manager's office at the KNVB, and is leaving that job to go manage Ajax, one of the two biggest clubs in Holland. It's not just a Dutch thing either. Mark 'Sparky' Hughes managed Wales before he got a real job with Blackburn, and more recently was headhunted by former Thai despot Frank Sinatra's Man City Mercenaries. Rampaging Slaven Bilic's one and only management job to date has been with the Croatian national side. And before he had the Italian Job, Bob Donadoni had only coached a couple of dodgy Serie B sides - badly - and had been sacked in each job, but still got the callup for the big chair after Marcello Lippi pulled stumps post-Germany 2006.
The theory is that international management is less intense than club management, being almost a part-time job (as it was for Aussie Guus, who for many years managed PSV - the other big Dutch club - in parallel with his international commitments at South Korea and Australia); and it's more a test of tactics and man-management, given that unlike at a club there's no prospects for recruiting the best players in a given position - you can't just buy in better cattle to cover a hole, you're stuck with picking the least shit 23 jokers holding your nation's passport at any given time. Then, once you've learned the basics of formations, tactics and ego-massaging in the international game, you can be entrusted with the tiller of someone's club, with the greater pressures that come with greater economies of scale.
All well and good. Except when the work experience kids run into crusty, wizened old veterans in the opposition dugout. Proper international managers who know what the fuck they're doing. Who didn't just inherit a side overflowing with talent who've already won half the tournaments in the land, but had to build the whole thing up from fuck-all using tactics, guile, cunning and old-fashioned hard bastardness. Then we have a problem. Then the accepted wisdom of giving young managers international jobs as a means of getting high-level experience looks pretty fucking stupid.
Like the Dutch did at EURO 2000 when the wet-behind-the-ears Frank Rijkaard was given a thorough tactical dust-up by Italian legend Dino Zoff, whose ten-man Azzurri lived on their wits (and more importantly Zoff's) for 90 minutes to hold out a charging Oranje outfit who'd put six past the Yugos in their previous knockout game, and barge past on penalties. (Those were the days.)
Like Slaven Bilic, whose Croatian formation had nothing for wily old Fatty Terim's Turkey across 118 minutes of football. 119 minutes, OK, they finally figured their shit out. But their lead lasted for approximately fuck all, Bilic utterly lost the plot and his team bottled it with him.
Like van Basten, who despite his side's overwhelming form in the preceding games (sound familiar, Dutchies?) was so utterly outplayed by his countryman Russkie Guus in the Netherlands-Russia QF it ended up being embarrassing. Being Dutch coach is more than just being able to keep 23 planetary egos in check for a month (24 counting one's own). Admittedly it's not a lot more but being reduced to having 30-yard cracks because you can't get within a five-iron of the penalty area means Your Tactics Are Shit.
And, last and most blatant of all, Roberto Donadoni vs Luis Aragones: the most one-sided Italy vs Spain duel since Valentino Rossi wiped the floor with Sete Gibernau. Aragones might be an elderly crank with batshit racist tendencies but he is An International Manager. Donadoni couldn't even work out in two hours of football that Luca Toni is a fucking rubbish striker, and subbed everyone else instead. Not to mention giving certified genius Alex del Piero a grand total of eleven minutes to go find a winner. He might be a genius but he's not a fucking miracle worker.
Non-Swiss Toni muses whether his new moustache is enough of a disguise, just in case his actual performance wasn't completely fucking anonymous enough already
And on the topic of things that look totally gay, can someone please ask the match-going men of Russia to put their fucking shirts back on? Russia's not a poor country any more since Put In flogged all that oil and gas to western Europe, and while Nike international replica strips are exxy, it doesn't mean your pasty white flesh is cutting it as a substitute, lads.
And can someone tell your women to lay off the peroxide? FFS, the way you lot are carrying yourselves, you'd think England qualified after all.
The Doctor is OUT.
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