Search: ' Steven Gerrard'

England stars miss a friendly in Berlin as "reserves" beat Germany 2-1 with the club versus country argument raging on

The Brazilian FA were clearly not expecting huge public interest in their friendly with Portugal on November 19, given that it was held in a 20,000‑capacity stadium in Gama, a suburb of the national capital, Brasilia. But despite the low-key nature of the fixture, several of Brazil’s star players flew in from Europe for the match, as did Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal’s captain for the night in their 6‑2 defeat. By contrast, England’s squad to face Germany in Berlin was significantly weakened by withdrawals.

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It is now 19 years since a non-League team knocked a top-flight side out of the FA Cup, but at Anfield David Nicholls saw Havant & Waterlooville come closer than anyone dared imagine

Comments flooding on to the havantandwaterlooville.net forum after the 4-2 replay win over Swansea suggested that the success had reaffirmed many fans’ faith in the FA Cup. Away ties had meant that Cup fever took a while to build, especially as the Hawks always have to fight Pompey for elbow room in the local press. The Hawks have struggled to establish a distinct identity, given their location on the edge of a large estate built to accommodate Portsmouth families displaced by Second World War bombs – the social housing is still administered by Portsmouth City Council, despite being well inside Havant Borough. However, the Cup run has now put H&W on the map, even internationally: magazines in Canada, Australia and Japan requested accreditation, while Spanish daily Marca dedicated a full page to the Anfield build-up.

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There is something hugely significant about picking a leader in England and it is not lost on Fabio Capello

Fabio Capello will have a lot to adjust to in his new job. One issue is how to bolster the confidence of players who have become experts at losing; more specifically, there’s the question of how to put across technical instructions on the training ground given that his main coaching assistant, 70-year-old Italo Galbiati, doesn’t speak English and his new English assistant, Stuart Pearce, doesn’t speak Italian. Another problem that will be new to him is the importance attached to the captaincy – the Italian media may analyse a team selection in microscopic detail, but no one really cares who the captain is. Indeed, in many cases, it has simply been a question of giving the armband to whoever happens to have the most caps. How differently we do things here.

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Dear WSC
Vaughan Roberts asks (Letters, WSC 251) if any of the schoolboys who took part in ITV’s Penalty Prize competition went on to become pros after their appearance in the shootout before the 1974 FA Cup final. Well, at least one did. Stuart Beavon was already on Spurs’ books at the time he put five out of six spot-kicks past Gordon Banks, no less. He made only three first-team appearances for Spurs but became a fixture in Reading’s midfield, playing almost 500 games during the Eighties. His penalty-taking prowess remained intact and in March 1988 he returned to Wembley to put Reading into the lead from the spot as they beat Luton 4-1 in the Simod Cup final. However, Stuart’s most famous penalty was a deliberate miss. Before the FA launch a belated match-fixing inquiry, Stuart’s failure came in Channel 4’s football drama The Manageress. Gabriella Benson/Cherie Lunghi’s team were based at Elm Park and had to win their last game of their season to win promotion and, 1-0 up with a minute to go, conceded a penalty. The script, of course, required the actor keeper to save the spot-kick and Stuart was asked to take the penalty. Apparently, it took ten kicks before the director was satisfied. In Reading’s next game Beavon took a real penalty, which he missed, blaming his failure on becoming accustomed to missing through his TV appearance. That miss cost Reading a win and, nine days later, it also cost manager Ian Branfoot his job, surely the only manager to be sacked because of a TV series.
Alan Sedunary, via email

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Where did it all go wrong this time? Harry Pearson assesses the tenure of the man under the brolly and Ashley Shaw looks at why the England team fail to unite the support of the country's biggest clubs

It was hard to look at him as he wagged his left arm in some forlorn attempt to get his players to deliver a decent cross and not think of Stevie Smith: “I was too far out all my life/and not waving but drowning.” Though sadly for the poet, she was not about to pocket £2.5 million on her way to a fortnight’s holiday in the Caribbean.

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