Spanish Secrets: Pride, Passion, Belief
With high expectations Craig Briggs and his wife Melanie travelled to Madrid to watch England play Spain in a friendly game. On a bleak night for football the English players had reason to be ashamed of their performance, and the Spanish crowd of its behaviour.
The headline on the BBC football web site read, English FA announce friendly fixture with Spain. The match was to be played in Madrid on November 17, kicking off 8.45 GMT.
This was an opportunity not to be missed, the best players in England and Spain meeting in one of the most famous grounds in the world.
Rather than buy tickets at highly inflated prices via the internet, we decided to depart from home early on the morning of the match, in the hope of buying them at the stadium.
We arrived at the stadium before midday and were pleased to find ticket availability was not a problem. With the best seats in the house costing just 27 euros and internet companies quoting us 3 times that amount for the worst seats. We were glad we'd waited.
That evening, when we returned to the stadium, the streets were crowded with people, everyone heading for Estadio Santiago Bernebeu, home of Real Madrid FC the most successful European football club in history. A stadium fit for princes.
Upon entering guests are greeted by staff handing out cushions. Overhead heating is provided in the stand. We quickly found our seats in the west stand, ten rows below the executive boxes and almost adjacent to the centre line. Absolutely perfect!
To our left, in the north stand, were the bulk of the English supporters. George Cross flags were hung from every available part of the concrete structure. Each standard had its origin carefully sown on. Hull City. Scunthorpe. Even one from our home town, Huddersfield.
The two teams emerged from the east stand to a crescendo of cheers from the expectant crowd. As the national anthems played, an enormous George Cross flag was passed hand to hand the full length of the north stand. Emblazoned across it were the words PRIDE, PASSION, BELIEF
The whistle blew and the contest began. But what was this? There was no Pride,no Passion and no Belief.
Captain Fantastic, David Beckham, hardly broke sweat and to disguise his lack of skill and technique, reverted to falling over every time an opposition player came too close.
The media's latest saviour of English football, the wonder boy Wayne Rooney, was completely outplayed by a far more determined, skilled and resolute Spanish defence. Like a naughty child who has had its toys removed, he then starting throwing tantrums, which eventually saw him removed from the field of play.
One of our most senior players, Gary Neville, conducted himself like a playground bully. Completely outclassed on the right wing and with Beckham simply not interested in helping him, he kicked his opposite number, Reyes, time and time again, until a stretcher was needed to remove him.
Once again our defence, with less synchronicity than clowns in a circus act, contrived to give the opposition a simple goal from a corner kick.
Whilst all this was going on, the man responsible for this fiasco, the most highly paid football coach on the planet, was sitting motionless on the bench. For a moment I thought he might be asleep. The only passion Mr Erickson has shown the nation since taking control of the national team has been in the bedroom with his highly publicised lovers.
I fear that Mr Erickson has little if any control over his highly paid prima donnas. Firstly it was a threatened strike by the players in support of a team member, banned for being guilty of failing to attend a drugs test. Then a refusal to speak to the press for criticising the teams' performance in a previous match, and now an anti-racist campaign prior to Wednesday's game.
The racist taunts from the Spanish crowd were disgusting and brought disgrace on the whole nation, but how many times in the past have we heard sportsmen and women and their governing bodies, complain that they are being used as political pawns. The Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics, and cricketing in Zimbabwe to name just a few.
The players should leave politics to the politicians, punishment of the Spanish team to football's governing bodies, and the game to the players.
On Wednesday night November 17, I was cheated, the travelling English fans were cheated and everyone sitting watching the television in England was cheated.
