Beating the Germans is great but getting over an obsession with them would be truly WUNDERBAR
ITV has given us the sequel to the cinematic masterpiece in which Sylvester Stallone and John Wark donned boots to outwit the Hun.
Harry’s Heroes: The Full English took 12 retired England legends, who looked like they’d opened all-youcan-eat pizza parlours and taken the title literally, and charged them with beating a team of old Germans.
Think Escape From Your Fridge To Victory.
In typical reality-tv style, the Seamans, Mersons and Fowlers went from no-hopers who couldn’t beat a team of schoolkids to valiant victors (right), sending the English nation to bed happy. Because, as Mark Wright put it, “It’s always nice to beat the Germans.”
It was hugely enjoyable telly, reminding us that players of their generation might not have earned today’s riches, but they knew how to enjoy themselves.
Although some paid a mental price for their lifestyles, as a haunted Paul Merson displayed. But it also reminded us of England’s never-ending obsession with putting one over on the Germans at football.
And, as the Three Lions begin their Euro 2020 campaign, with the semi-finals and final to be played at
Wembley, a feeling is growing that it’s not just the old boys who are about to show the old enemy how to play.
Reasons for optimism abound.
There are no
German sides left in the Champions League because Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool brutally put them to the sword.
Top Bundesliga clubs admit the best young talents, like Jadon Sancho and Callum Hudson-odoi, are emerging from the English system.
Gareth Southgate’s men reached last year’s World Cup semi-finals, while Joachim Low’s side failed to make the knockouts and, although England have made the finals of this summer’s Nations League, Germany were relegated from its premier tier.
To top it all, instead of England trying to copy the German blueprint, DFB officials have visited St George’s Park to seek advice on coaching, coach development and how to build a national training centre. That’s right, the men who run German football think England has expertise worth tapping into.
Which has to be a first. Yet, only a fool would see it as proof the two rival nations are set fair on different paths.
Most bookies still have England at longer odds than Germany to win the Euros, despite Low’s side facing Holland and the tournament ending in England.
That’s wise.
Think back to England’s second-best result against Germany, the 5-1 Munich hammering in the qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup. What happened after that? England went out in the quarter-finals in Japan, while Germany made the final.
And, rather than deem that a success, the DFB realised they were falling behind the world’s best, so overhauled their academy systems and made their top teams play the best prospects in their first teams. Then won the World Cup in Brazil a decade later.
They’ve just discarded Thomas Muller, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng – none older than 30 – as a sign that a new brush is sweeping through.
The Germans may be going to England to learn from them but let’s not confuse that with the notion that football’s coming home.
With no appearances in a major competitive final for 53 years, it’s English football still on the learning curve.
Only when it shrugs off its obsession with Germany will it truly escape to victory.