Okay, parallel universe time. Try to imagine it. It’s 21 November, 2007 and Mladen Petric’s shot at Wembley on 77 minutes clips the outside of Scott Carson’s post. Phew, close one that. A 2-2 draw at home to Croatia is nothing to celebrate but never mind, we’re going to Euro 2008 after all. Steve McClaren puts his brolly in a charity auction at Christmas and everyone has a bit of a laugh about the episode. McClaren gets an endorsement with an outdoorwear company. There’s a mildly amusing television advert in January.
Fast-forward through all the build-up.
England base themselves in Leogang, a small Austrian skiing resort, and the Football Association decide to ramp up their already pretty strict security measures. The team stay in a castle guarded by the Austrian army’s crack Jagdkommando group who suspend all special operations for the month to establish a 24-hour guard in order to prevent serious breaches of team security. Such as someone taking an unauthorised picture of Wayne Bridge eating his breakfast. On their first night the Austrian commandos mistakenly arrest Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive, when he arrives back after curfew. He is held without charge for 48 hours. Civil liberties groups in Barwick’s native Liverpool campaign for his release.
The FA make preparations to avoid the embarrassment caused in Germany in 2006 by the behaviour of the players’ WAGs and wider family members. They come up with a place for them to stay judged far enough from the team’s base in Austria to avoid any distractions: it’s called Switzerland.
And so to the football. This is the part where the parallel universe becomes more difficult to predict. First game against Spain in Innsbruck – who are we kidding? Spain would have swept England away, despite a week of build-up with us English laughing up our sleeves at them for not starting with Cesc Fabregas.
Greece? Even England could expect to win against them, perhaps with the help of a bad refereeing decision that leads to major incidents of civil unrest in parts of Haringey.
Then last night’s game against Sweden. Watching Russia take the Swedes apart last night you could not help but think that England would have struggled to do the same had it been them at Euro 2008 instead of Guus Hiddink’s Russia. With the likes of Freddie Ljungberg, Henrik Larsson, Olof Mellberg and even Anders Svensson, Sweden are largely made up of players who were at their best four or five years ago. So in that sense they are very similar to the current England team. Still, there is that part of me that thinks England would have just edged it.
Having said all that, I don’t fancy our chances against the Netherlands on Saturday.
So true, we would have bashed McClaren's boys!
Posted by: BennY | 19 June 2008 at 03:24 PM
You forget about december's draw. I think England & Russia should be in different group's, don't they? Sorry for my English. :)
Posted by: Karel_2000 | 19 June 2008 at 03:41 PM
Good point Karel.
Nice item, wrong group !!!
Posted by: Mickey.P | 19 June 2008 at 04:38 PM
You've misunderstood. In this imagined scenario England take the place of Russia in Group D. Hence the line "had it been them at Euro 2008 instead of Guus Hiddink’s Russia".
Posted by: Sam Wallace | 19 June 2008 at 04:50 PM
sam wallace are you insane? how can you put Russia in the same group as England. we qualified out of the samE group so couldn't have played them at the euros. we'd have been in group c obviously. get it right. have you've been hanging out with jason burt too much? he lies about things he claims to have seen too
Posted by: JoNESY AKA MARK JONESSSSSSSSSSSSSAMWALACEISWRONGSSSSSSS | 28 June 2008 at 03:47 PM