Don’t expect Sterling to dazzle like I did in Brazil
Hodgson’s teams just don’t let f lair players f lourish, says Barnes, the star of the Maracana 30 years ago
JOHN BARNES rejects the similarities instinctively, as though fearful of the debate becoming trite. Both he and Raheem Sterling were born in Jamaica, played as wingers for England and Liverpool and have borne a nation’s hopes for its team’s creativity and flair at the World Cup Finals.
‘We’re both from Jamaica and that’s about it,’ says Barnes dismissively ‘He’s right-footed and small. I’m leftfooted and average size.’ However, having established the differences, he warms to his theme.
Sterling heads off to Brazil this week where Barnes is the scorer of one of the greatest goals the Maracana Stadium has ever seen — his 35-yard dribble in 1984 in England’s 2-0 win.
And his 18 minutes in the World Cup quarter-final defeat against Argentina two years later was one the finest substitute appearances by an England player. Almost saving the day for England, Barnes crossed for Gary Lineker to score one goal and set him up for another chance which was agonisingly deflected wide.
Yet those were probably two of Barnes’s finest moments for England in a career spanning 12 years and which accumulated 79 caps. And they came when he was 22 and 23 years old. At Italia ’90, he was injured by the time England produced their best performance abroad at a World Cup, pushing Germany to penalties in the semi-final.
So there is an element of almost paternal concern when Barnes pleads for the wider public to be patient with Sterling and to understand that what we see with Liverpool may not be replicated with England in Brazil this summer.
‘I still don’t want to put so much pressure on him now that he has shown so much quality in the last few months of the season,’ said Barnes. ‘Maybe he is going to be inconsistent because he is young. But in terms of what he did in the last few months of the season, he was probably the best player in England. Not the best English player; the best player in England, the best attacking player in England.
‘In terms of the way we play, we both like to dribble and Raheem has improved a lot of his end product. Now he doesn’t dribble all the time. He plays one-touch or two-touch football. He’s able to score, he’s able to create.
‘At the start of the season, I thought his end product wasn’t what it should have been, but in the last three months of the season — not just in terms of his dribbling but in terms of his goalscoring, his ability to play one-touch, twotouch, his football awareness — it all improved in a small space of time.’
However, Barnes is hesitant to predict great things immediately.
‘People threw that at me all the time,’ said Barnes. ‘You don’t do for your country what you do for your club. It’s because your country plays completely differently to the way that your club does.
‘If you look at the way Sterling plays and the way Liverpool play, England don’t play that way. The way England play — not dominating possession — is that going to suit Sterling? Because if you look at England players in the past couple of World Cups, the players who have made the most impact have been the defenders and hard-working midfielders. We play against teams who dominate possession. So it’s a war of attrition, backs to the walls, whereby John Terry and Rio Ferdinand and the hard-working midfielders are the ones who are most important.
‘We’re talking about looking at all these flair players but are England going to play that way? England don’t normally, as we saw against Germany and Chile in November.
‘England lost those games, so I would not expect players to produce what they do for their clubs for their country.’
All the most technically gifted Englishmen of the last 30 years — Barnes, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney — have experienced these frustrations to varying degrees playing for England.
‘All the flair players for England in the past, like Hoddle or Waddle, were accused of not doing it for their country, because that is not what the Eng- lish way is. Now England is changing and is a much more technical team.
‘Nevertheless, they still don’t dominate possession against the Germans, the French, the Chileans and other South Americans. So how can you get the best out of all these flair players, who need to have a lot of possession?
‘That’s why these players do well for Liverpool, because they need to have a lot of possession. To then say: “Because you do that for Liverpool you’re then going to do that for England” is unfair.
‘It’s not just against teams such a Italy or Argentina that we conced possession, We played against Tunis (in a pre-World Cup friendly in 199 and they would have had as muc possession, if not more than u because that’s not how we play.
‘We might beat them because we’ strong, we’re physical we’re good set-pieces and we’ve got goo goalscorers. For players who rely o having a lot of the ball, as Sterlin does and Jack Wilshere does — all
these attacking players we have — if England aren’t going to play that way to keep the ball more than the opposition, are we going to see the best of them?
‘That’s why Steven Gerrard is going to be very important because, in defensive midfield, he will have a lot of work to do. Hopefully England can get the balance right.
‘But the team reflects the manager. Is Roy Hodgson that type of manager, to say: “Let’s keep the ball for 50 passes in the back four?” I don’t think so. So regardless of what players you have, the team has to be reflective of the manager and the
The England players who make the most impact are defenders
JOHN BARNES is realistic about Hodgson’s ethos
manager’s philosophy. Perhaps he’s going to play with Ross Barkley, Sterling and Wilshere and all these attacking players and when we get the ball we’re just going to keep it for a long time.
‘Roy Hodgson hasn’t shown us that ever in his career. Even if he has got those players now with England, if that is not the type of manager he is England aren’t going to benefit from doing it that way.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if James Milner and people like that are very important because of the manager’s philosophy of having hard working players who don’t rely on possession to be effective. And Danny Welbeck may not have done well for Manchester United, but he’s always done well for England in terms of alleviating pressure, working hard, tracking back. Only Roy Hodgson can tell us that.’
Hodgson may be about to re-invent his persona in the minds of the public and unveil a free-flowing, attacking team. Or the gap between excited English expectations and the reality on the pitch will yet again provide a chasm of despair.