Inspiration in South Africa

I’ve just returned from a busy but inspiring week in South Africa, starting with a visit to the Soccerex convention in Johannesburg, which brings together some of the leading football brands and what you might call “movers and shakers” in the game.

One of the most fascinating sessions was Sepp Blatter's keynote talk, which included what could be best described as an interesting perspective on Thierry Henry and the France handball incident, and more positively an impassioned reasoning of why it had been so important to take the World Cup to Africa.

I moved on to Cape Town in the middle of the week where I helped to launch ‘Offside’, an exhibition looking at the role South African footballers have played in the British game, against the social and cultural background in both countries.

This is a joint venture between the British Council and the District 6 Museum in Cape Town, and Kick It Out, and the Sheffield-based FURD in the UK.

It is an exciting project that will tell us so much about our histories through the mirror of football.

As luck would have it, England were drawn to play their second game of the tournament in Cape Town, against Algeria. Having now been there twice I can tell you that England fans will be in for a treat, it’s a beautiful city with a spirit amongst the people that is unmatched.

Looking at the draw, it was a good one for England. The USA are a strong, well organised team and it would be foolish to write off Slovenia and Algeria, but like most people I am confident England will do well and progress to the next round.

On the 2018 bid front, it was a great week. The team were busy at both Soccerex and the draw and the presence of David Beckham led to some crazy local coverage and by all accounts many positive meetings with the people who will be doing the voting next December – the FIFA Executive Committee members.

There’s still lots to do, many more hurdles to overcome but to me things look good.

Italian discipline working for England

England stuttered a little on Wednesday and made heavy weather against ordinary opposition. I think the level of expectation may have got to some of the players, resulting in a few nervy moments.

In amongst it all was another cap for David Beckham. With Bobby Moore’s record now beaten, he’s bearing down on Peter Shilton’s magic number of 125 appearances.

There have, however, been one or two dissenting voices, not least from Shilton himself. With Beckham coming on in the dying seconds of a handful of games the view is that many of the caps he’s recently won shouldn’t have been won at all,.

Certainly in Shilton’s era, caps were harder to come by. In modern football, squads boast much larger numbers, and some managers have been generous in awarding caps to players who might not have been in the reckoning in the past. I can see why he felt the need to comment.

Back to last night, and Capello continues to drive the team forward in his own assured way. And a key part of this is a disciplined approach. I experienced this first hand during my time as a player in Italy with Bari and Pisa.

There were no nicknames, cliques or in-jokes. We ate together, trained and travelled together. When we wanted to leave the table, we even had to make eye contact with the coaching staff to ask to be excused. I was only 23 but I enjoyed this kind of management.

My old club Chelsea go to the North East this weekend for one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the season. But the spotlight won’t be on Hiddink and his team. Alan Shearer’s return to Newcastle United as manager means all eyes will be on the home dugout.

It’s an interesting turn of events. He’s a wealthy man with a burgeoning media career. It will please many people, supporters and credible people in the game that he has come out of that zone. And it’s this that may have spurred him on to take the job. The managerial post at St James Park is far from comfortable.

Crucially, it appears he’s taken the job on his own terms. There’s a real sense that the team might go down which will have huge ramifications financially for the club. The chairman, Mike Ashley, is giving him sole responsibility to steer the club to safety. This might explain the departure from St James Park of my old teammate and friend, Dennis Wise.

Dennis is a capable football man. And he’s been instrumental in some of Newcastle’s successful signings this season. The circumstances were very unusual, with him being appointed director of football, particularly bearing in mind his credible managerial career. He was brought in because Mike Ashley wanted knowledgeable people to flank him during his first season as a Premier League chairman.

I think that what was always a tall order and became glaringly evident over time was the strange relationship between Wise and the fans. But ‘Wisey’ has a good pedigree in the game and he’ll be back. There’s a club out there for him, I’m sure of it. And with the ‘contain and counter’ game Chelsea are so good at it, the result tomorrow might not be what Shearer, or Ashley, were hoping for.