Passing of the artists

A SEASON made ugly by sleaze, the Cantona affair and the return of hooliganism is all but ended without even the compensation of an English success in European competition. But of all the laments, perhaps that closest to the hearts of those who still want to believe football is better served by managers, coaches and players who place skill before rugged endeavour, is that today brings the last appearances of Jrgen Klinsmann for Tottenham Hotspur and, if he elects to take the opportunity of a final curtain call, Glenn Hoddle for Chelsea.

Klinsmann has been a brief blessing in a new guise. He arrived with an exaggerated reputation for cheating, diving, looking for penalties and looking for the high rewards of a last big pay-day. Anyone who had watched him regularly knew there was more to him than that. Spurs fans may give him a mixed goodbye, but even one season appreciating his special skills has been enough to remind a younger generation that much of what they watch is cumbersome stuff by comparison.

Although Klinsmann is a deft striker with power disproportionate to his size and Hoddle a big man with a velvet feel for the rhythms of the game, they share a mastery of the first touch. They also share the ability to turn and beat a defender in a single movement, as did Gary Lineker, but Klinsmann contributes far more outside the penalty area than the striker turned pundit did at Spurs. The German knew Tottenham had a reputation for playing a midfield-based passing game. It is a pity that he is not going to stay to extend that reputation and poignant that he leaves on the very day arguably the most gifted of Tottenham's many gifted players stands down to concentrate on being manager at Stamford Bridge.

Last weekend Hoddle made a brief appearance for Chelsea at Leicester. Later someone phoned in to Radio 5's 6.06 programme to say he was a Leicester supporter but that the Chelsea substitute had just reminded him of what football was all about. Hoddle played a 15-minute exhibition in which hetreated the ball as if it were both a friend and a priceless vase. He made a few passes that raised the admiring eyebrows of the whole crowd. To allow himself to finish his playing career as a mere substitute, an amendment on the team list, today would be as if to compound the errors of a succession of England team managers. They were afraid to do what Michel Platini, of France, said he would always do given the chance - write Hoddle's name first on every team-sheet.

To English international football's shame, and long-term cost, it was in France with Monaco that Hoddle found true recognition. In that country the No10 shirt is something to be earned. Graham Rix, who now assists Hoddle at Chelsea, also played in France and was considered by some (mostly Arsenal supporters on holiday) a comparable act. He said that it took time for him to earn the 10 shirt but Hoddle seemed to be given it as if by right. Monaco instantly recognised a rare ability. Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson, the England managers in Hoddle's era, seemed scared of it.

A breathtaking ability to pass a ball more accurately than any Englishman since Johnny Haynes was poorly rewarded. He was accused by his detractors of "disappearing" in some games, but his fans reply that 10 seconds of Hoddle, perhaps a winning pass off a clipped half-volley or just one curling free-kick into the top corner, was worth waiting for, and won matches. If he had scored that astonishing goal of Nayim's for Real Zaragoza on Wednesday, the surprise would have been tempered a little: catching goalkeepers off their line was a speciality.

He won only 53 England caps when it ought to have been twice that number. He won two FA Cup winners' medals and won one French cup. He also achieved a French league winners' medal and was named best foreign player. At the same time, he studied the coaching technique of Arsene Wenger, whose attitude was that football should be entertaining and rewarding but never meek.

Had Gerry Francis not decided to stay at Tottenham for another year, no doubt Hoddle's name would have been put forward as a natural replacement, but if Spurs need Francis for at least another season, Hoddle probably needs another one at Chelsea to turn them into a more consistent team and to learn more about the business of managing men whose talent is transparently inferior to his own.