• • •
‘We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith,’ Gareth Southgate is famously alleged to have said about Sven’s half-time team talk against the Brazilians. Sol says: ‘I don’t remember it being particularly inspiring but that wasn’t his [Sven’s] style. He sometimes took individuals to one side and gave them a talk but he certainly didn’t with me that day.’
It rained the day before the match. Everything had cooled. As Sol walked alone in the hotel grounds, he prayed it would rain again the following day, the day. He was not alone, the whole squad felt the same. It would help. Brazil on the other hand prayed for the opposite. Hot and stifling.
Sol slept well. The small beds had now been exchanged for larger ones at England’s home base. When the squad arrived in Japan, they found the hotel beds too small for the size of a typical English footballer. Replacement beds hadn’t come straightaway and there was frustration but now everything was prepared, well organised.
Sol spent the night before alone in his room following dinner. He kept himself to himself a lot of the time. He accepted the fact that he would never get on with everyone. Not in life. Not in the England squad. It just doesn’t happen that way. We are all different. Just because they happen to share a gift of being the best footballers in the land doesn’t mean you have to get on. Many will consider themselves at best incompatible with, at worst superior to others, so that disputes are unavoidable. For his time abroad, Sol did not ally himself to any group or involve himself in any conversation that engaged in trivial debate or controversy. Sounds tedious? Perhaps, but he was simply more comfortable in his own company. He didn’t play cards or play golf. He couldn’t get into PlayStation. Martin Keown was part of the squad and Sol spent time talking with him. He was disappointed that he wasn’t able to immerse himself in Japan’s culture and surroundings. But he still enjoyed his time there. He enjoyed his football. When fit, he always enjoyed the games and the training. That was his fun. Playing in the best competition in the world against the finest players; he felt flushed with the freshness and sense of anticipation. When you’re winning and playing well, it feels as if everything is under control.
Everything, of course, except the weather. As Sol woke the following morning and peered out of his window, he was greeted by blinding sunlight. The sky was as white as a shroud, which, as he watched, slowly turned blue. His heart sank. He knew that the heat would test the team.
The game at the Shizuoka stadium started well for England. Michael Owen scored in the 23rd minute, pouncing on Lucio’s mistake; a pickpocket in action. But Brazil equalised through Rivaldo, from a perfect ball by Ronaldinho, which Sol was unable to reach, just minutes before half-time. Rivaldo turned in celebration, taking off his blue shirt and swinging it around like a giant wheel, revealing a yellow vest, licking his lips and enjoying the taste of the blood of the Englishmen. Just before half-time is thought to be the worst period to let in a goal. The team can feel exactly how the supporters do: deflated. Sol walked back into the dressing room looking at the positives. He could see the team was rattled but by the time they came out for the second half, they would be ready again. The break would give them the chance to re-energise. Change the pendulum back in their direction. Remain calm. Forty-five minutes left. Anything could still happen.
There seems to be a miscomprehension about a manager’s team talk. The common belief is when a team walks in at half-time and they are losing when they should be winning, the truly great manager of the day will inspire the players with a coruscating speech. Sol doesn’t see it like that. ‘The manager’s team talk doesn’t really exist. Not one with words that can motivate us to win, not in my experience. Perhaps Keegan was the closest to that type of management. He spoke with passion. Wenger tended to let you relax when you first got into the dressing room. It isn’t his style to come in and start immediately to motivate. He would let the players deal with the physical side first, and then if we needed a ‘rocket’ would let us know just before we went out again. It would be measured and well timed, so that his words were still spinning in our ears as we returned to the pitch.’
There was no speech from Sven that day. He said his piece and the players had their say. The feeling was collective that they could still do it. They were an established team now; a group of players who knew how to motivate each other. They spoke the same language. The fifteen-minute break, instead of feeling like a good rest, felt more like a catnap. It felt as if someone had tampered with the official watch. It felt as if time had started to act strangely. But as the team trooped into the heat again, there wasn’t a player who didn’t believe that victory could be theirs.
In the second half, Brazil went ahead 2-1 from a free-kick by Ronaldinho. It was over forty yards from goal. It caught Seaman off his line and left the English goalkeeper back-peddling in disbelief. ‘It was a long way out,’ says Sol. ‘I don’t think he meant to do it.’ Whether he did or whether he didn’t, England had to come back from a goal behind. Their task was made easier by the sending off of Ronaldinho for a late tackle on Danny Mills, just before the hour. Mind you, by the time he’d left the field, it was more like 65 minutes. But after that, the game petered out and England were unable to make their one-man advantage count.
Surely we could have won, couldn’t we? We should have beaten Brazil, beaten Turkey in the semi-finals and then slaughtered Germany in the final. Hallelujah! England are world champs. The players’ names are immortalised. The country celebrates for another fifty years. Oh God, if only…If only.
In the dressing room after the game, Sol feels parched. He drinks litre after litre of water. He washes away his sweat, his body pleading for rest. There is no more time for dreams. He can’t see anything clearly at that moment. The disappointment is too great. He will only be able to truly register it when he returns to England, and catches the remaining games on the television. ‘You know what, looking back I don’t think we believed we could win,’ he says. ‘They were one man down and we still couldn’t push, we were flat, all our bodies were spent, we were knackered. Michael Owen was half-fit, we had too many players not a hundred per cent.’
‘Mind you,’ he says, nearly as an afterthought,’ if we had beaten Brazil, we would’ve been strong enough to play ten more games! Winning, more than anything else, gives you strength.’
• • •
Japan was in the past now. Could England put their hoodoo behind them and go the distance in the European Championships? They qualified for Euro 2004 in Portugal by topping their group one point ahead of Turkey. Sol played in four of the qualifying games, missing the others through injury.
But in the tournament itself, England gave a sigh of submission very early on. They lost their first game to France 2-1 in Lisbon after leading the game for 90 minutes. Zidane scored from a free-kick and, virtually with the last kick of the game, grabbed the winner from the penalty spot. The following match, England won 3-0 against Switzerland, with the night belonging to Everton’s Wayne Rooney, who scored twice and became the youngest player in European Championship history. ‘I’d put him in the same bracket as Paul Gascoigne,’ Sol says. Two years earlier, Rooney, still only sixteen, had been introduced to the county’s consciousness with a superb last-minute goal so cool, so unflustered, that it would skim past Sol’s right foot and end Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run. ‘It was an exquisite shot but I had no idea he was a revelation. I’ve seen other young players doing extraordinary things, score wonderful goals. That’s not the test. It’s whether you can repeat it again and again over a long period that proves your greatness.’ Rooney would score twice again in the last group game, England beating Croatia 4-2, the other goals scored by Scholes and Lampard. England progressed into the quarter-finals to face the favourites and hosts, Portugal.
Rooney, now the talisman of the England side and the media’s darling, walked off injured as early as the 27th minute in Lisbon. But England had gone ahead in three minutes, from a Michael Owe
n goal after he intercepted a back pass from Costinha. They held out for 80 minutes until Helder Postiga headed Portugal level, and the game looked as if it was going into extra-time. But not before we had another one of Sol’s ‘if only’s’. If only referee Urs Meier had given the goal scored by Sol in the last minute of the game. ‘It was an awful decision. Unjust. Worse than the disallowed goal against Argentina. If Portugal had scored, it would’ve been allowed. I have no doubt!’ John Terry was adjudged to have fouled the goalkeeper, and a free-kick was given rather than a place for England in the semi-finals of a very open tournament. Another disallowed goal marked down on Sol’s curriculum vitae and, once again, the prospect of being a national hero was snatched away.
In extra-time The Maestro, the attacking midfielder Rui Costa, scored the goal of the tournament, with a shot recorded at 91km/h. But Frank Lampard equalised five minutes later and the match was destined for penalties and yet another English disappointment. ‘When we lost, I truly felt I couldn’t go on like this. We had a very good team. We deserved to win. It felt as if a higher power had decided it wasn’t to be. It had begun to happen too often for me to disregard other forces.’
Beckham missed his penalty by launching the ball into the top tier that, if it were the theatre, would have been the perfect moment to pull out the opera glasses just to watch it dart by. England’s miss that decided the game was bestowed upon Aston Villa’s Darius Vassell. His penalty was saved by goalkeeper Ricardo who promptly got up to take one himself and score the winner for his country. The hosts eventually played Greece in the final. The Greeks won 1-0, heralding one of international football’s greatest upsets.
• • •
In October 2005, Sol won his 66th cap and earned himself a place in the top twenty most-capped England players. His caps since Euro 2004 had dropped off due to injury, and the emerging partnership of John Terry and Rio Ferdinand. By the time the 2006 World Cup squad was named, Sol was no longer first choice. He made an appearance though, as a substitute against Sweden.
After the tournament, Sven said his goodbyes to the squad. His resignation had been accepted before the competition. He shook Sol’s hand as they were about to board the flight home. Polite and comfortable, it was a civil goodbye. Little did either know then that they would be saying goodbye again five years later, but in a considerably different manner.
The process of finding a new England coach reached the heights of ineptitude. Promises of finding the best possible coach were acted out like a third-rate end of pier farce. The FA seemed hell-bent on pressing the self-destruct button. They initially chose Luiz Felipe Scolari but he quickly made it plain that they should look elsewhere. In the end they picked Eriksson’s coach, Steve McClaren. Sol was promptly dropped from the England setup, along with David Beckham and David James.
There was no phone call, not even a letter. There was no explanation as to why he was being dropped. ‘I got a text. ONE TEXT! That was all,’ Sol says angrily, and then retreats into hesitancy. ‘It just isn’t right to treat someone like that. Also, it was shortsighted. You never know when you might need the player again.’
England started to lose. McClaren’s team looked ineffective and unlikely to qualify for Euro 2008. The manager looked out of his depth. He was not ready for the job. The papers reported that McClaren was considering a recall for Sol. ‘I knew the newspaper stories were coming directly from McClaren. It’s how it works, a trickle of stories followed by a phone call.’ His mobile rang. He knew who it was, even before looking at the screen. He was hesitant. What should I do? Leave it? Let it ring forever? The way he was treated by McClaren made him feel like he was in one of those dungeons in which you can’t stand up or lie down. He felt incarcerated. Where were his good manners? Respect? It hurt. No-one knew how much.
His usual habit was to let calls go straight to voicemail. He thought for a moment and then reluctantly answered. It had taken McClaren a year to make the call.
‘Hello Sol, it’s Steve McClaren.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Sol tutted down the phone while, half-sighing with his other voice.
He couldn’t refuse the call-up. It was his country, after all. Anyway, he was happy to be back. He loved playing for England. Even when he was on the bench, however excruciating it felt, he was proud again to be part of the squad. McClaren said to the press, ‘I always maintained that I was not closing the door on Sol. I know he won’t let England down and I am very pleased to welcome him back...’
He played four more times for his country. His last game was against Croatia, which England lost 3-2 at Wembley. England didn’t make the Euro finals and McClaren lost his job.
‘England dropped me,’ Sol says, miffed at the memory of his last years of international football. He believes he should have gone to South Africa in 2010. ‘I was angry and disappointed not to have been picked for the World Cup squad in South Africa. I was playing well enough on my return to Arsenal and yet [England manager] Capello chose Carragher, who said he’d retired from international football, and Ledley [King], who was injured most of the season, ahead of me.’
He used to bump into Fabio Capello. They lived in the same area of London and went to the same coffee bar, just below Sloane Square in Chelsea. They would always greet each other formally; a hello, and sometimes a shake of the hand. One morning, Capello was with his assistant Franco Baldini. Sol spoke one to one with Baldini, making it clear he’d like to be considered for the England squad to South Africa. ‘My form had been excellent for the last few months, I was getting better and I was getting stronger. I believed I was good enough to be picked. I wanted to make sure that they knew I was keen to be involved.’ Baldini listened. He said they’d heard rumours from Liverpool that Jamie Carragher was considering a return to international football after he’d announced his retirement in 2007. ‘There’s him and of course Ledley King is still keen to be part of the squad, even through his injuries.’ But he said that he would talk to Capello and see what could be done. He hurried away before his cappuccino got cold. It was one final aside before writing a loud ‘THE END’ and slamming the door on Sol’s international career forever.
Meanwhile Capello’s England tenure would last just two more years. He gave the visual impression that he couldn’t wait to get out of the country. His body language exuded a need to escape; he might as well have said: ‘The only worthwhile view of England is from the back window of a taxi heading for Heathrow!’
• • •
Sol ponders his entire England career with bicker and banter. From the moments before his debut against Hungary in 1996 to his tournament debut in Euro ’96 as substitute against Switzerland and Stuart Pearce yelling, ‘Get into your fucking position!!’ when he first got onto the pitch; on what he expected it to be like; on what it actually was like as a player; and now, in retirement, on how it should have been.
It is the ‘now’ he finds himself thinking about the most. The hushed gossip of a hundred half-conversations, the absence of cries of ‘Bravo!’, the FA seemingly nervous to acknowledge and applaud in the wrong place. What went wrong? ‘I’m acknowledged more around Europe than in my own country. It makes me sad. Maybe it’s the English way,’ he says. He finds it difficult when thinking of his international career to sit back, make himself comfortable and enjoy what he worked for and what was given back.
‘I believe if I was white, I would’ve been England captain for over ten years. It’s as simple as that,’ he says without emotion. ‘I think the FA wished I was white. I had the credibility, performance-wise, to be captain. I was consistently in the heart of the defence, and I was a club captain early on in my career.’ He thinks the FA decided they couldn’t have a black face fronting the full national side around the world on a regular basis. ‘It’s crazy!’ he says. ‘It’s an indictment [of them] and I don’t think it will change because they don’t want it to, and probably the majority of fans don’t want it either. It’s alright to have black captains and mixed race in the Under-18s
and Under-21s, but not for the full national side. There is a ceiling and although no-one has ever said it, I believe it’s made of glass.’
He pauses. ‘Are there elements in the FA who are [intrinsically] racist? Is the FA always the leader of football it should be? Is the FA as pro-active as it should be, or does it simply react to something long after a situation has developed? I have my views and others will have theirs.’
Take for instance the comments of previous FA chairman Lord Triesman, who, after leaving his post in 2011, was heavily critical of English football’s governing body. ‘It is more likely if he was white that he would have captained England on more occasions. I don’t subscribe to the view that it [the FA] was consciously racist but I think there is an assumption of a type of person who should captain England.’ Having said that, he continues, ‘The team [selection] rests solely with the manager. I cannot remember anyone ever saying you should pick X or Y. Last time it happened was with Sir Alf Ramsey and he told the FA where to go. [In my time at the FA] I was a great enthusiast for Rio to captain England but it was Capello’s choice for Terry and I left it at that.’
Sol contrasts his feelings on his full England debut against Hungary with those on gaining his fiftieth cap. ‘I knew I was going to come on sometime during the game against Hungary. I was just waiting. But when I was told I was coming on, I felt so proud. What a feeling! I thought, this is what it’s all about. I’m playing for my country. I remember thinking of Lilleshall. I’d progressed from there to the first team. I’d gone through the whole system and here I was, taking my first steps as a full international picking up my first cap.’ He pauses and jumps ahead to when he won his fiftieth cap against Denmark in the 2002 World Cup in Japan. ‘Do you know, the FA planned no recognition for me when I won that cap? They had prepared nothing. I was hurt and, again, disappointed. I complained to someone in the FA, and only then did they give me a memento, a few weeks after the World Cup: a collage of photographs from all the games, with no frame.’
Sol Campbell Page 23
