Written by Oscar Pye-Jeary
And so we arrive again at that magical time in the football year, when everyone suddenly realizes there’s an international match on in mid-week, explaining the slight dip in Sky’s usual hyperbolic bluster, the sudden rise in suspect injuries to top players and the increasingly highlighted presence of Fabio Capello at an unfeasible amount of games on the same day. As it happens, for once Don Fabio has a relative clean bill of health, with Fergie and Carlo having plainly exhausted all their excuses as well as every entry from the big book of short-term injuries. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your view point – he won’t be able to utilize them in the newly launched, inaugural Nations Cup, which kicked off with the Republic of Ireland beating Wales 2-0 at the new <insert corporate name here> Stadium on the site of the old Lansdowne Road.
The Nations Cup is essentially the old British Home Championship, except with the Irish in the place of the English, who turned down the option to take part at an early stage, only to attempt to revive the BHCs themselves earlier this year, once again displaying the startling and embarrassing arrogance, inefficiency, and dynamic forward planning of the FA in one fell swoop.
Despite being the dodgiest looking thing this side of a Tracey Emin sculpture of Al Pacino’s hair, the Nations Cup is a throwback to the good old days of semi-competitive home nation rivalry. The days when in lieu of being any good against the likes of Italy or Brazil, we could always console ourselves with the prospect of beating someone just as rubbish as us, in something that was vaguely meaningful in a localized albeit trivial way. Due to the obviously tight window available, the first round of games will finish this week, after Scotland has played Northern Ireland, and not renew until the end of the domestic season in May, whereupon two more rounds will be played.
This may seem a little pointless – and truly it is – but it is at least a chance for some competitive, interesting International football, rather than the ever devaluing and distracting friendly games, often merely played as a token concession to some vague notion that these lads should probably play together once in a while if they’re going to be able to beat anyone.
So far the early signs haven’t looked too promising. Held in Dublin, many locals were put off attending the Republic vs. Wales by tickets priced around the cost of a Premier League game. Much like Wembley Terminal 5 before it, the newly built Lansdowne Aviva Christmas Disco Multiplex needs to be paid for, and this means bums on seats and cash in wallets. Generally however the expectation is that the potential is there for something exciting eventually, but that the FAI – much like the English FA – will almost certainly make a hash of it somehow. With the meatier, more interesting ties scheduled for May, we’ll likely have to wait until then to see if it pans out well or not, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on for all those who bemoan the lack of excitement in International football these days.
It’s hard to imagine the Republic vs. Northern Ireland, or even the Republic vs. Scotland playing out to anything but raucous full houses, even if FAI chief John Delaney does decide it’s an excellent opportunity to add a new conservatory to his house.
The assumption that any eventual England inclusion would lead to a tiringly monotonous parade of victories is not really grounds for concern. Given the current state of the English national team, the Celtic nations would be hard pressed to field a team of physically handicapped semi-professionals who couldn’t have improved on England’s performance at the World Cup, and the intense rivalry that could be re-generated by a home nations grudge match would go at least some way to leveling any supposed uneven playing field.
And of course it hardly matters who wins the thing. Which is handy because it’s hideously ugly anyway and no one in their right minds would want it on display in their custody for a whole two years. It looks like the kind of thing ball boys bring tennis balls to the court in, except containing three relay batons instead, which has then been hit viciously in several places by a particularly angry Tennis player and then had ribbons tied around it like bandages in the vain hope of giving it some dainty presentational appeal. No one really cares who wins it, it’s about the event natures of the games themselves. The one-upmanship, the bragging rights and the actual competitiveness. Something for the fans to get their teeth into other than a complimentary salmon roll.
Some fans and politiks don’t want England involved, mainly due to the way the FA rather shambolically went about trying to dismiss it’s existence, but many do see the financial and atmospherical benefits of the Three Lions inclusion. I think it’d be in everyone’s interest if England did take part. From blooding young players, to getting fans more into it (which, lets face it, is a problem at the new Wembley “lets all do Mexican waves after 20 minutes” Stadium.) It’d certainly be more interesting than playing Denmark. No offense Denmark, but I just can’t get very excited about you.
You can follow Oscar on Twitter here, http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary where you can forward your complaints about his unfair treatment of Denmark to Top Gear. (No really please do, if only to just confuse them)
This article was first published on FootballFanCast.com
