Death of the great stoppers?

2008-06-27 14:48

Sport24 chief writer Rob Houwing. (File)

Rob Houwing

A tell-tale moment during the electric, decisive Euro 2008 group-stage match earlier in the tournament between Turkey and the Czech Republic rather summed things up for me.

David Rozehnal, the beanpole Czech central defender, found himself in an unusually attacking position - with his back to the Turkish goalline yet only a metre or so out.

Receiving possession at his feet, he could not muster a striker's lightning instinct to turn and shoot, or even back-heel an audacious attempt on goal.

Instead, in a feeble bid to seek out an attacking colleague facing the goal, he effectively poked the ball back out of the danger area.

"That's a good bit of defending by Rozehnal," ventured the tongue-in-cheek English television commentator, "from a Turkish point of view, that is..."

It is history, of course, that Turkey, in a fairytale last quarter of the game, overturned a 2-0 deficit for a dramatic 3-2 win which secured their advance, first to the quarter-finals and then into the last four, quite against expectation.

But that moment - great clearance, wrong end! - somehow summed up my feelings and suspicions about central defenders at Euro 2008.

Danger area

Symbolically, it was confirmation to me that all is not especially hunky-dory in the important, bedrock art of clearing the decks in the proverbial danger area.

With apologies to a 1978 movie starring Jacqueline Bisset (it had a slightly more culinary theme): Who is killing the great central defenders of Europe?

Statistics, I confess, do not provide the most compelling back-up for my reservations. This tournament, with just Sunday's final to come, has provided 76 goals in 30 matches at an average of 2.53 per match.

That is fewer than at Euro 2000, in Belgium and Holland, when the full 31 matches saw 85 goals at 2.74 per game. But it is just about level-pegging with the last Championships, in Portugal in 2004 - 77 at 2.48 - and easily eclipses 1996 (in England) when a parsimonious 64 goals came at 2.06 a game.

At that event, Scotland's very traditional, lamppost-tall aerial interception ace Colin Hendry was turned like a freshly-oiled stadium stile by Paul Gascoigne of the 'Old Enemy' en route to a famous Wembley solo goal... but his otherwise yeoman, almost anti-flamboyant toil earned him a spot in Uefa's team of the tournament, all the same.

Quality crosses

Goals, of course, come in an array of different forms and circumstances, and I will not be swayed from my belief that dedicated man-marking and rapid, decisive clearing in central defence have appeared to become a forgotten art at Euro 2008.

European and indeed world football has a satisfactory enough supply of full-backs who conform to the modern demand of being 'comfortable going forward' - it may explain, in fact, why quality crosses into penalty areas come dime-a-dozen: they are almost as likely to be fed in by speedy, skilful 'wing-backs' these days as they are from more conventional wingers.

But who is taking charge of 'snuffing-out' duties in the all-important middle as these balls - both swinging high and torpedo-like low - whizz in?

I am not convinced this chore - always an unglamorous, potentially nose-breaking one - has been in surest of stewardship at this tournament.

The afore-mentioned Rozehnal, after all, is a relatively discredited Newcastle United defender (he was recently finally transferred to Lazio after a loan spell), and if you can't crack it at the eternally defensively-fragile Newcastle, you're unlikely to light up arguably the next best international tournament to the World Cup, are you?

Struggling horribly

And speaking of ex-Newcastle stoppers, wasn't that their old 'friend' Jean-Alain Boumsong - whose gremlin moments at St James's Park earned him a comical sort of cult status - getting important game-time for France before their ignominious blow-out from the group of death?

The fact that France fielded fading 35-year-old Lilian Thuram and also saw fit to experiment with full-back Eric Abidal in central defence at the championships suggests that this powerhouse nation of only a few years ago is suddenly struggling horribly for stoppers in the aftermath of Messrs Desailly, Blanc and Leboeuf.

Similarly, if there was one reservation about Portugal, promising early pace-setters at Euro 2008 via their galaxy of silver-booted attacking blingsters, it was a perceived lack of height and muscle in defence.

Guus Hiddink's surprise packets Russia looked reasonably adhesive at the back for large tracts of the event: it's just a pity that period only came sandwiched between 4-1 and 3-0 reverses at the hands of Spain.

Injuries

Traditionally, the European Championships have been a vehicle for revered, often pockmarked and uncompromising central defenders to demonstrate their trade.

Think Franco Baresi, Italian sweeper 81 times between 1982 and 1994, and, more recently Alessandro Nesta, whose catalogue of injuries caught up with him in the lead-up to Euro 2008, depriving both his country and tournament of one of the standout global stoppers of the past decade or so - and probably going some way to explaining why the World Cup champions failed to get beyond the quarter-finals here.

Think Ronald Koeman, the robustly-built Holland star who did go positionally 'walkies' at times, it is true, but nevertheless was a near-permanent fixture at the heart of the Dutch defence from 1983 to 1994 and whose dead-ball prowess did his legend no harm.

Then how about the central defensive pairing of Jurgen Kohler (105 caps) and Klaus Augenthaler, important, no-frills pillars of German glory at the 1990 World Cup?

I believe it is no coincidence that Sunday's final will be contested between two teams better staffed than most, on overall tournament evidence, in central defence.

For Spain, look no further than Carles Puyol, the relatively headline-shy Barcelona man who goes about his business as all exponents of his specialist positional trade should - calmly, industriously and with an organisational acumen and alertness that rubs off on the whole defensive unit.

Puyol, at 30 quite possibly at the prime of his powers, has been a consummate professional at Euro 2008, too. When he had a painful, accidental head-clash with a Russian forward in the semi-final, he didn't crumple to the turf and writhe in usually predictable 'agony'... he quickly got up and, while rubbing his head, shook hands with his opponent upon inquiry into his own degree of health.

It was the sort of moment that might have pleased central defensive old-schoolers like Franz Beckenbauer and Jack Charlton, for whom cranial bangs doubtless came dime a dozen.

Rough edges

There is some hope for a restoration of European central stopping standards, too, in the form of other finalists Germany's 'two Ms - Christophe Metzelder and Per Mertesacker.

Real Madrid's Metzelder is forceful in the air, as befits a man of 1.93m, and if Mertesacker, of Werder Bremen, still has some rough edges to his game, it may be because he is only 23 (surprisingly for a near 50-capper) and far from a graduate in terms of accumulation of defensive knowledge.

It is true that Germany do not look wholly impregnable at the back: three times at Euro 2008 - against Croatia, Portugal and Turkey - they have conceded two goals in a game.

But at least Metz elder and Mertesacker seldom go AWOL from their primary duties; that would be extremely un-German, after all...

- Sport24