OK, so There Won’t Always Be an England
They can put away the riot gear, pack up the canisters of tear gas, send the police dogs back to the kennel. France got its country back Tuesday night when Argentina put England and its attendant hooligan menace out of the World Cup on penalty kicks.
During its final two hours in the tournament, however, England finally brought something to the party besides the repair bill.
Down a goal after six minutes, down a man for 73 minutes, England engaged Argentina in the first classic match of the 1998 World Cup, a reminder why this event gets away with calling itself the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet.
England and Argentina are forever linked by their 1986 quarterfinal in Mexico, a game that featured perhaps the two most famous goals in World Cup history--Maradona’s outrageous “Hand of God” sucker punch, followed by his legendary one-man snake dance through the entire English defense.
Yet the rematch eclipsed the ’86 original on almost every level, leaving eyewitnesses drained and limp and sending cynical sportswriters to their keyboards with heads shaking and jaws slacked.
“It was a privilege just to watch it,” one American broadcaster said as he filed out of the press box at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard.
Two goals in the first 10 minutes, one per side, both on controversial penalty calls.
Two more goals before halftime, one courtesy the flying feet of an 18-year-old English schoolboy named Michael Owen, the other coming on a wicked piece of Argentine skulduggery on a free kick seconds before the first-half whistle.
Then, two minutes into the second half, England has its obligatory World Cup disaster against Argentina.
Forget the “Hand of God.”
Now all of England is gnashing its teeth over the “Shin of Spice Boy.”
David Beckham, the Manchester United midfielder equally renowned for his impending nuptials to Spice Girl Victoria Adams, pulled the brain cramp of the tournament by leg-whipping Diego Simeone after the Argentina captain had clobbered Beckham while chasing a loose ball.
Flat on his face and seething, Beckham looked up at Simeone and whacked him with his right leg.
Unfortunately for Beckham--and all of England--while he was glowering at Simeone, he completely missed sight of referee Kim Nielsen standing scarcely five feet away.
Yellow card, Simeone.
Red card, Beckham.
As any one of the Spice Girls can readily tell you, trying to play Argentina 10 on 11 is seldom recommended for tournament survival.
Already in London, tabloids on the street are angrily denouncing Beckham as the man who tossed England’s World Cup in the dumpster. One sheet, in its customary postmatch playing ratings, on a scale of one to 10, graded Beckham a zero.
England played on without Beckham, played short-handed for the final 43 minutes of regulation, plus 30 more of extra time.
Seventy-three minutes of holding Argentina to a standoff in the second round of the World Cup with only 10 men.
It was a remarkably game effort, but in order to persevere long enough to force a penalty shootout, England Coach Glenn Hoddle had to keep sending in fresh legs to bail out the defense. In the process, Hoddle pulled two of his top penalty-kickers from the field--Paul Scholes and Darren Anderton.
By the time England dragged itself to the shootout, Hoddle had only two usual penalty takers at his avail--Alan Shearer and Owen--with three more slots to fill.
They went to substitute Paul Merson and two defense-first midfielders, Paul Ince and David Batty. Batty never takes penalties for his club team, Newcastle, and Ince is notoriously loathe to them. In the 1996 European Championship semifinal shootout with Germany, Ince begged off a request by then Manager Terry Venables to shoot sixth, so Venables went with fullback Gareth Southgate, an international rookie who nervously squibbed his attempt right at the German goalkeeper.
This would have been a fine spot for Paul Gascoigne, except Hoddle forgot to bring Gascoigne to France. Steve Sampson had his John Harkes, Hoddle had his Gascoigne--and Ince and Batty had their penalties blocked and now Hoddle and Sampson have one more thing in common: lots of free time.
The English players were devastated, but moments after Carlos Roa blocked Batty’s final attempt, the England rooting section, sensing it was needed, launched into an impromptu thunderous chorus of “God Save the Queen.”
It was something to see: The fans lifting the players off their backs when they were at their absolute lowest. It’s the kind of scene that never quite makes the evening news highlights, not when there’s hot footage from Marseille of drunken English hooligans clubbing Tunisians with empty beer bottles.
And that’s too bad. Because just as soon as the English became a credit to this World Cup, this World Cup became past tense to the English.
