England are off to the Euros, but they're not taking any of the players in Roy Hodgson's real-life squad. This can only go well.
My mission is to take England to glory at this year's European Championships, but without using any of the players in the real-life squad. It's difficult to tell how it's going because so far we've played Lithuania, Slovenia, Switzerland and San Marino. It’s time
to speed this process up, otherwise we are in danger of turning this series
into Alternative Meaningless Matches rather than Alternative Euros.
Find Part 1 in which little happens here, find Part 2 where we vanquish the Lithuanians and Slovenians here and find Part 3 where we somewhat impressively take down Switzerland here. I select
my squad for friendlies against Spain and France, which will be a stern test
for this motley crew.
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| Mark Noble for Prime Minister. |
A barely fit Phil Jones comes in for an injured Scott
Dann. It displeases me that I pick someone with little game time, least of all
someone with little game time who plays for Manchester United, because I don’t
want to become what I hate. But Jones will be an important player in France and
I need to integrate him into my group of players sooner rather than later.
Otherwise it’s the usual bunch of England superstars in my squad, from Callum
Wilson to Sam Byram.
I line up
thusly against the juggernauts of Spain:
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| Look at them with their two holding midfielders, the boring bastards. We'll show them how to football. Luke Shaw playing at left-wing? You bet your arse he is. |
I decide
to maintain our blood-and-guts attacking approach. If we’re going to lose to
Spain, we’re going to do so in style.
Aaaaaand
not only do we lose to Spain, but we do so timidly and insipidly. Juan Mata
gives the Spanish a comfortable 1-0 lead at half-time, which David Silva and
Sergio Ramos add to after the break. A Redmond cross from deep is converted by
Danny Ings but it’s all for naught. Actually, it’s all for one I suppose. But
one to Spain’s three has left me feeling trepidation for the Euros. We barely
had a sniff of a chance other than the goal, and I doubt how effective our
set-up is against opposition capable of passing the ball.
I revert to the classic Salter 5-3-2 formation
to take on France. Here are the Three Lions, all eleven of them:
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| Wilson vs Varane, Cork vs Pogba and Cresswell vs Griezmann will be crucial tactical battles. I can't see how we can lose this one. |
15 minutes
are all we need to take the lead. Cresswell whips in an early cross which is
nodded home by Rodriguez, and I’m starting to think that early crosses are our
best means of grabbing a goal. 90 minutes of our wing-backs whipping in early
crosses and who will be able to stop us? Not you. The rest of the match is a real
snoozer of an affair, the kind that would have Twitter in uproar at just how
tedious both teams’ performances were. Alas, France ended with something to
show for their tedium when Antoine Griezmann bagged a late equaliser.
Nonetheless we held our own against one of the world’s elite, so that’s nice.
Elsewhere
West Bromwich Albion, bottom of the Premier League, dispose of Tony Pulis. As
England manager I am honoured to be bestowed the opportunity to vote for the
winner of the World Golden Ball. In a season dominated by the traditional
forces of Messi, Ronaldo and Suarez, I decide to vote for Alvaro Negredo,
Sergio Busquets and Raffael. Suck on that one, Cristiano.
But put
those trivial matters to one side, for it's time for the EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
GROUP STAGE DRAW. This is exciting! Because of my managerial prowess England
will be entering the tournament as one of the 1st seeds. We get
drawn into Group E, because E is for England. Take a look at these second seeds
and see if you can work out which team I would least like to face.
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| For those who can't be bothered to click on the picture to make it bigger, that's Croatia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. |
So of
course, we get drawn Germany. The 3rd and 4th seeds are
all fairly agreeable, so I’m indifferent to find that we will be pitted against
Austria and Slovenia. We trashed Slovenia 4-1 in my second match in charge and
will be taking them on in our first match of the Euros. Get three points on the
board, and the match against Germany will hopefully be redundant. Because we
sure as hell ain’t winning that.
In other
news, mid-table Chelsea wave goodbye to Guus Hiddink and replace him with David
Moyes in a move that I’m sure their fan-base received with applause and tolerance.
My beloved Ipswich relieve Mick McCarthy of his duties and offer me a job interview.
As tempting as this is, I will need to be fully focused on taking England to
their customary quarter-final defeat.
Messi
beats Luis Suarez and James Rodriguez to win the World Golden Ball in a massive
injustice to Alvaro Negredo. In a quick-fire spate of sackings, Newcastle and
Middlesbrough fire McClaren and Karanka respectively on the same day and
Liverpool fall out of love with Jurgen Klopp.
John Terry
has fallen back into love with international football though, and responded to
my persuasion to renounce his retirement. Sure, I know what John has done. He’s
a bad man. But he’s having a barnstormer of a season and he can play on the
left side of my defence. People won’t like it, but if I cared about what people like then I would never have started a match against Spain with Steve Cook and Ryan Shawcross as my centre-back pairing.
John Terry
will go into contention for our next match. As fate would have it, it’s against
our old friends Germany…
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| My reaction to getting drawn with Germany in our group, and then having to play them next in a friendly. Those pesky Germans and their footballing ability. |
Next time:
see how our match against Germany bodes for our European campaign, find out
which Greece-based player I desperately draft into my squad, and discover how complete
unknown Mario Alsdorf has become one of the most dangerous players on the
international stage. This sounds more intriguing than an episode of Poirot. It’s
not.
