The men who taught the world how to beat England at their own game
by Rory Smith
Simon & Schuster, £18.99
Reviewed by Andy Brassell
From WSC 353 July 2016
Mister is the story of England’s (and its coaches’) role as a football missionary, spreading the gospel across the continent and beyond until the point when the pupils overtake the master – and keep going until the latter is a mere dot in the distance.
1 July ~ “His Euro is over, that’s fate for you,” Marc Wilmots told the press on Thursday night, reporting on Jan Vertonghen’s injury. Belgian media had speculated all afternoon about Vertonghen’s ankle, badly sprained in training earlier in the day, causing ligament damage.
The true inside
story of football’s
greatest miracle
by Dave Bassett
and Wally Downes
Bantam Press, £18.99
Reviewed by Shane Simpson
From WSC 350 April 2016
Dave Bassett, and co-author Wally Downes, make it clear that this book has been written in response to those involved in the BT Sport documentary The Crazy Gang, who Bassett feels “had not done their homework on the years before the 1988 Cup final… [having] an agenda whereby they wanted to sensationalise some of the stories that Vinnie and Fash had, and made them the centre of attention when the film was released”.
The art of war
by Fran Guillen
Arena Books, £9.99
Reviewed by Dermot Corrigan
From WSC 344 October 2015
The worst thing about this new biography of Diego Costa is the subtitle, and the faux-inspirational Sun Tzu quotes which start each chapter, giving the immediate and unfortunate feel of a popular business bestseller.
This packaging, also a feature of the original Spanish book published in 2014, is a pity. Because beneath the guff about the “warrior centre-forward” and the “what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch” posturing, this unauthorised but very well researched biography does a very good job of explaining how Costa nearly never made it only to burst onto the scene almost fully formed as a world-class centre-forward at the age of 23.
Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes enters the story early – apparently as he personally noticed the 16-year-old playing (and getting sent off) in a youth tournament in Brazil. Former Atlético Madrid sporting director Jesús García Pitarch then appears with some entertainingly open talk about how the relationship between Mendes and Atlético worked in those days, and also what he calls the “smoke and mirrors” aspect of the deals that get done.
The travails of Costa’s early career are also well described – especially the seasons on loan at Celta Vigo, Real Valladolid and Albacete – where a teenage Costa is apparently amazed to see snow for the first time. He and his team-mates enjoy late night poker games, watch pornographic movies in hotel rooms and get into rows at motor service stations. The many former team-mates and coaches who spoke to Guillen, a well-connected Marca reporter, all seemed to have been equally impressed by Costa’s ability to both score goals and get into scrapes.
Through these years nobody seems to have tried too hard to put into place a structure that would help the “overgrown kid” to grow up and reach his potential. At various times Mendes and Atlético tried to sell him (to Besiktas and Real Betis) in cut-price deals which fell through at the last minute. Even Diego Simeone didn’t really rate the still raw 23-year-old when they started working together in summer 2012.
A matter of months later, Costa was maybe the best centre-forward in the world, the key player as Atlético became a better team than both Real Madrid and Barcelona. His own less than convincing explanation of the transformation is that “something just clicked”. Pitarch reckons the late development was mostly down to “bad luck”, but haphazard career management by his elders seems more to blame.
Guillen’s telling of Costa’s more recent story, with Atlético’s successes, his switch to represent Spain at the World Cup in 2014, and his first year Chelsea, will hold few surprises for readers who follow the game day to day. You do notice, however, how even all Costa’s most recent coaches – Simeone, Vicente del Bosque and José Mourinho – have put short-term gains ahead of his long-term fitness. Even now, nobody within the game really cares what’s best for Costa himself.
by Stan Osborne
Legends Publishing, £12.99
Reviewed by Julian McDougall
From WSC 343 September 2015
Making the Grade was published in 2012 but without the critical reception it deserved. Stan Osborne has had two careers, footballer and teacher. Here, he shares his memories of the first, spanning just two years (1969-71) as an Everton youth player and alludes to its impact on the much longer second. This is most striking when he accounts for his own time at school: “This was the 1960s and there was no hue and cry about physical punishment… we accepted [it] without complaint, in the knowledge that it was invariably administered justly and fairly.” The author never says this directly, but there is a strong implication that he laments not only today’s player power but also the shifts in school discipline.
On the cover, Joe Royle says he read the book in one night, and certainly any reader with an interest in the vein of unsung football insight previously attributed to the likes of Eamon Dunphy, Gary Nelson and Gary Imlach (whose father Stewart, then an Everton coach, plays a prominent role here) won’t labour over this.
Osborne writes directly and with precision, dispensing with the need for reflective flourish – the order of things was as it was, and the better for it. The book reflects on the social and hierarchical function of “banter” at a football club and the pervading insecurity of that world – much of the bullying is carried out by those with the most to lose, the younger pros keeping apprentices in their place, while the first-team stars are benign and aloof.
Has Osborne observed a parallel in education, you wonder? But the central theme – of this being a harsh world for working-class men, from school to football to the outside world – ultimately turns the author into a victim as he is released and bluntly asked by Everton manager Harry Catterick to “close the door on the way out”. His playing days will continue at semi-pro level, but within weeks he is at college training for PE teaching. Never, though, does Osborne lay blame, he accepts this cruel fate as harsh but fair, as with the pain inflicted by his teachers.
This sense of undeveloped implication ultimately frustrates as the book might have been even more fascinating had Osborne described life as a PE teacher in the Black Country. Every day must, we’d assume, be inflected with the experiences of his first career. Teaching is full of exes: artists, musicians, athletes and these days, thanks to Michael Gove’s scheme, soldiers, all carrying the weight of the past. When Osborne tells us “I walked out a hard bitten angry young man with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Liver Buildings who was determined never to feel the pain of failure again”, I want to know how this impacted on his teaching, and how he feels about his students’ attitudes.
In the final pages he returns to Everton’s training ground, Finch Farm having replaced Bellefield, now a “relic from a different time and place”, and casts another stoical gaze on the inevitability of heartbreak for most of today’s academy hopefuls, still envious of their slim chance despite his own experience – “gosh, the tears hurt… even now”. Leaving the reader wanting more is, of course, the hallmark of a great book, and this reader hopes Osborne writes a sequel about his second career.