The Euro draw

Published : Mar 02, 2002 00:00 IST

WITH the World Cup finals still to be played, we already know who will play whom in the forthcoming European championship. Is it all just too much for players, clubs, fans and media alike? When the draw was made, the African Nations Cup and the CONCACAF Gold Cup were both in full swing, taking key players, especially Africans, away from clubs which might badly have needed them. Although Arsenal did manage to knock Liverpool out of the FA Cup at Highbury without their right- sided defender Lauren, playing for Cameroon, and perhaps more important, Nwankwo Kanu, who was demanded by Nigeria, though given four days' grace by comparison with Ipswich Town's Finidi George.

Kanu had just run into his best, most intricately elusive, form up front for the Gunners and though they did win that Liverpool game it was at the cost of having Holland's Dennis Bergkamp sent off and thus liable eventually to a three-match suspension. Hardly the time to be without Kanu. And Ipswich, the following day, were sensationally thrashed 4-1 on their own Portman Road ground by Manchester City from the inferior Nationwide division. How much difference might the electric Finidi George have made had he only been playing? You do wonder why Ipswich did not make more of a fuss about it. For this was surely why the Gunners got their extra four days of Kanu, having so bitterly confronted the Nigerians when they wanted him in the past.

On the other hand you could say that Manchester City themselves were without a major figure in their attack in the shape of Costa Rica's Paulo Wanchope, playing in the Concacaf tournament. You do wonder just how long the Africans can go on so provocatively staging their Nations Cup every two years rather than every four. And you wonder the same about the so called Copa Latina, once known as the South American championship and still a two yearly affair, even though the World Cup qualifying tournament for South America has been bloated beyond belief.

For many years, of course, it just consisted of three small qualifying groups. Now alas it drags on for 18 weary months until four top teams qualify and the fifth plays off against the winners of the Oceania group, on this occasion in the shape of Uruguay surely fortunate to have the chance to defeat the Australians.

When the European draw was made, England were drawn in the same group as Turkey whose manager announced that he hoped his home game would be staged in the Galatasaray stadium. Which has caused a major frisson. Only too fresh in the memory is the cruel assassination of two middle-aged quite peaceable Leeds United fans who happened to have walked out of the wrong bar at the wrong time in Istanbul when their team played a European tie against Galatasaray there. Both of them were stabbed to death.

There was a violent sequel when Arsenal played Galatasaray later in the final of the UEFA Cup in Copenhagen with shocking fighting in the streets. Already there is talk at the English FA of limiting the number of England fans allowed to go to the match in Turkey.

Ideally, surely, none should be allowed to go at all, but how do you stop them? Issue a very limited amount of tickets and you will still have fans, with a high complement of hooligans, pouring into Turkey in the hope of seeing the game, or perhaps of just fighting with their opposite Turkish numbers. The attempt to weed out hooligans by identifying them and turning them back at ports or airports is like trying to bale out the Pacific with a thimble. We saw what a hopeless quest it was when England thugs ran riot in Charleroi during the 2000 European championship finals. Besides, thugs converge on England's foreign trips from all over England knowing that there is every chance that whatever violence they become involved in they'll escape arrest.

Having said this, one must pay tribute to the amount of impressive talent Turkey have unearthed in recent years. The transfer of Hakan Sukur from Inter, where the big centre forward was surplus to requirements, to Parma, which he immediately celebrated with a goal against Bologna, means he will at least be getting regular match practice. Behind him at Inter he leaves those two very bright young midfielders, Buruk Okan and Belozglu Emare.

England, however, should be a much improving team by the time it comes to those games, with emerging talents such as Newcastle's Kieron Dyer, West Ham's Joe Cole and Michael Carrick, strutting their stuff, and Liverpool's Michael Owen, hamstrings permitting, looking more dangerous and predatory than ever.

Italy are favourites in a group which includes Yugoslavia, Finland and Wales; but the Italians don't seem to have been terribly successful in finding new young talent, the only player this season to have made a substantial mark among newcomers is Cristiano Doni of Atalanta, who has been such a prolific scorer from midfield, and is seemingly bound for wealthy Juventus at the end of this season. But Doni is no youngster. Verging on 29; Roma born, ignored by the big Roman clubs, obliged to wend his weary way through a profusion of minor clubs in lesser leagues, though Brescia did give him 21 Serie A games back in season 1997/8.

Wales' manager, Mark Hughes, is making optimistic noises. He does have a formidable striking pair in big John Hartson and swift Craig Bellamy, while Tottenham's right flanker, Simon Davies, is in exuberant form. What worries me is the soft centre of the Welsh defence. Attackers such as Yugoslavia's Kezman and Milosevic, Finland's Jari Litmanen and Mickael Forssell, not to mention Christian Vieri, could do substantial damage.

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