'Le Carrousel': France's forwards look set to bedevil England's Kabaddi defence

On Friday the 2012 European Championships begin. I'll be hooked on the event as ever, catching as many games as I can on the box, so this year I thought I'd run a blog following the tournament. Issuing dispatches; offering addled thoughts. That type of thing.  

   

Tonight I've been watching France, England's first opponents at the Euros, pour melted cheese over Estonia in their final pre-tournament friendly. At 3-0, Nasri, Benzema, Ribery and Newcastle's Yohann Cabaye are operating a whirling carrousel in the "D" around the Estonian penalty area; playing the possession game honed by their Spanish and Catalan neighbours. Fantastic stuff.

Karim Benzema

And France can finish as well. Benzema cracked in a beautiful curler for the second, scoring another after the break. Tonight they form a modern 4-3-3, Benzema flanked by freethinkers Ribery and Nasri, and despite some defensive concerns, the French look polished and dangerous going into the tournament.

  

In contrast, Roy Hodgson's England promise a brand of football so outdated they may as well come out wearing baggy shorts, waxed moustaches and centre partings. The last manager to succeed with Roy's 4-4-2 formation was picking Fatty Foulke in goal.   

Next week's face-off with France is likely to be a siege affair; John Terry holed up like Raoul Moat as le Carrousel spins relentlessly around the English goal. England's progress will not be measured in goals, but how many touches of the ball they can scrape and how many complete passes they can muster. Expect the possession statistics to make grim reading. Last week, England failed even to get the ball off Norway; Hodgson's entire XI shadowing their Norwegian tormentors in a kind of squatting Kabaddi defence, linking en masse to surround the attackers without getting close to contact with the ball.

  

All said, there's something refreshing about Hodgson's pragmatic approach to this tournament. And he did win those two friendlies against Norway and Belgium. But forget your Keegan perms and Waddle-Hoddle mullets. No more Gazza Tears and Golden Generations. Flair, imagination, creativity be damned. Hodgson's plan means that This Time, more than any other time, England are going to find a way not to bloody lose.

     

(Here's a picture of me from 5th July 1982, excited before England's crucial World Cup tie against Spain. Full of hope, my pre-match preparations were meticulous. On the TV is the 7 inch single of England's World Cup song "This Time", placed to inspire the team. England failed -Keegan missing an open goal in the death- and limped out of the tournament providing the first of many anti-climaxes to come)