England expects ... not a lot, really

A footballing nation, traumatised by England's dismal display against Switzerland on Saturday, is seeking desperate remedies. I, of course, have the answer, but first let me consider one of the most apparently sensible solutions.

In the Daily Mail, Andrew Neil says we should abandon our four home international sides and play as Britain United. "It is", he writes, "the height of conceit to think that we are capable of international success when the best British players are split between four teams."

On the face of it, this makes perfect sense. The national divisions sustained by our international footballing identity are wildly anomalous. Individual states in the USA are more emotionally and practically independent of Washington than Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland are of London, and almost any country you care to name has equally or more profound regional distinctions. We are, to the rest of the world, the United Kingdom, a single, blended, eccentric and usually cantankerous unit. To play as four separate teams is merely one more symptom of our bone-headed, atavistic temperament. And, of course, from our own point of view, we are no good - surely it is far better, under the circumstances, to widen the soccer gene pool from which our ashen-faced managers can draw their teams.

The first problem with this is that it would damage us politically. Having four teams means we have four votes on Fifa, the world football governing body, and this allows us, in theory at least, to steer the administration of the game in our direction. Fancy rule changes favouring hot-headed, hot-climate players can always be blocked.

The second problem is that, right now, it would not work. The only non- English player who would currently be selected for a Britain team is Ryan Giggs, the mercurial, floppy-haired winger from Wales. And does anybody believe he alone is enough to make any difference - apart, of course, from increasing the number of teenage female fans? The sad truth is that Britain United may have looked a little more stylish - they could, let's face it, scarcely have looked less - against Switzerland, but they would still have limped off with a dismal draw. Admittedly, in the Sixties, any constitutional change would have been justified to bring George Best in from the boondocks of the Northern Ireland team. But Giggs is not Best. Indeed, in a thousand years of football no nation can hope to produce his like again.

And so we come to my solution. This requires careful consideration of exactly what happened against Switzerland. Essentially, our fault was that we played for 45 minutes instead of 90. Not only did the whole team seem to grind to a halt after half time, but Terry Venables, that strange, awkward man, also found it necessary actually to "rest" players to protect them from the hardship of playing the whole game. Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne, notably, was taken off once it became clear that, having played well in the first half, he had no intention of playing at all in the second.

Now let's contemplate the moment that Gazza left the field. He waved happily to the crowd as if saying: "Aren't I wonderful? But that's your lot." The crowd waved back and cheered, humbly accepting that 50 minutes of Gazza was all they could reasonably expect. Plainly you cannot hope for this man to knock back Hong Kong tequila - he did not, of course, trash the Cathay Pacific jumbo, that was done in a warm, collective spirit by the whole team - and play an entire game of ... what's it called? ... oh yes, football.

In picking Gazza, therefore, we are picking half a player; and, indeed, the clubs that have paid millions for his services must have been buying no more than 50 per cent of the whole man. This is pretty extraordinary and suggests a whole new way of doing business. I might, for example, agree to write columns for the Independent on the clear understanding that I would only use, say, 15 letters of the alphabet. Or John Major might agree to be Prime Minister on every other day - though perhaps he does that already.

On Saturday afternoon, something of the same spirit appeared to infect the whole England team. An entire match seemed just too much to expect from the poor dears. They were, quite simply, unfit - whether emotionally or physically I cannot say. I watched all the other weekend games and none of the other teams displayed anything like these post-interval symptoms of lassitude and exhaustion. They were all committed, fierce and fast; we were all detached, self-indulgent and languid.

The reason is, I think, irony. Irony is currently all over English sport like a cheap suit. Top of the charts is an ironic song by those two ironic lads Baddiel and Skinner about football coming home after 30 years in which, presumably, it has been abroad. The accompanying video makes much of the fact that neither Baddiel nor Skinner can play soccer to save their lives. Plus, of course, these two host a television programme called Fantasy Football League in which the one consistent joke is that nobody is particularly good at the game itself.

Fantasy is the theme of all these newspaper games at the moment. We are invited to play pretend football or whatever from the comfort of our armchairs. The effect is to distance the real game, to remove the possibility of real commitment or heroism to a safe distance. Lad culture - of which all this is the clearest expression - certainly glorifies football, but it does so with a remote, ironic, Post-Modern chuckle. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that when the real England team takes to a real England pitch they behave as if they are surprised by the reality of it all - all that grass and stuff. Gazza and friends have started to think that football means ticking boxes, not kicking balls.

This is a hopeless state of affairs. Modern sport cannot be played ironically. Other countries demand heroism and a defence of national pride from their players. In the United States, successful sports coaches become moral shepherds to the nation. The Promise Keepers, the male fundamentalist Christian sect which is driving previously alienated urban men back to their homes and families, was started by a sports coach. In the United States, as in many other nations, sporting excellence is an expression and celebration of moral character.

Irony cannot prevail against this. The culture of Post-Modern laddery is no match for moral seriousness. Think of Gazza and then think of the basketball superstar Michael Jordan. It's a joke, right? Jordan is from another planet; Gazza is human, all too human. Okay, George Best could get drunk, have a haircut, open boutiques and still play like a god for 90 minutes. But he was a genius and Gazza is not. We cannot wait in ironic expectation of such stars.

The solution is to get serious now, preferably before Saturday comes. England expects ... but then, being England, she does not expect very much.