We might as well accept the England team will never be anything but
ugly.
Currently, the general feeling seems to be: yes, they should.
"England's style of football gets me," Israel's Idan Tal said
this week. "When you kick the ball to someone so they can head it
in the air, it becomes ugly." While some might applaud Tal for not
tip-toeing around the subject - praising instead the England team's lovely
speaking voice and sensible shoes - it does still seem a bit of a pointless
observation. There's a genetic inevitability about the ugliness of the
England team. This is just what we've been given and, like flyaway hair,
you really can't do anything with it. In fact, rather than worrying about
waltzing past the likes of Israel and Russia playing a thrilling fusion
of body-popping, capoeira and football, England are best off just putting
a more sympathetic spin on what they've got:
We're ugly but fun
The most appealing form of ugliness. Like being the best mate of the really
handsome guy in a Hollywood romantic comedy: you get all the best lines,
plus you're not even that ugly, just a tiny bit overweight with a zany
goatee beard. On the international stage only Ireland have ever pulled
off being both ugly and fun, notably during the early Jack Charlton era
when the sight of Tony Cascarino marching a revered European libero around
in a headlock by the corner flag still seemed cheeky and subversive.
We're just strong and clumsy
The selection of Emile Heskey is an encouraging sign here, what with all
the husky talk of prodigious work rates and keeping defenders honest.
Picking Heskey is like hitting rock bottom. Yes, it says: we are England.
We are cumbersome and guileless. We are like a hulking idiot man-child
in depression-era rural America. Watch out. We might sit on you or accidentally
strangle your kitten.
We're ugly but strangely irresistible
Ideally, England can move towards being ugly in a magnetic kind of way:
the type of ugliness that makes beautiful women say things like, "You
bastard, I hate you, I hate the rumpled charisma of your scuffed set-pieces
and 50-yard passes into the channels". Works best if you're rich
and powerful and smoke a lot. And if you occasionally win things. In fact
Germany have pretty much got this one stitched up.
We've got a really nice personality
Moves are afoot to promote England as football's equivalent of the Dove
poster women, so much more "real" and "honest" than
the unattainable tippety-tappety conventionally beautiful football played
by the likes of Brazil and Argentina (in fact, by pretty much everyone
except us and Scotland). As England, we're not afraid to stand around
giggling in our underwear, proudly displaying to the world our stretch
marks and our terrible shortage of quality forwards.
We're just really ugly
On the other hand, why bother botoxing your midfield with a jinking winger,
or lipo-suctioning the flab from your attack with the dramatic recall
of a discarded targetman? England might be best off simply trading on
their own circus-ring hideousness. This way, for the bearded lady, the
one-paced central midfielder and the ball over the top for Michael to
nick something. Gruesome, but also strangely compelling.
,
September 8, 2007
Russian ladies dream about happy marriage.
Click on a photo...
