In the bowels of the Stozice Stadium, Roy Hodgson could be found turning his mind back to the long, difficult days after the World Cup when he tried to get away from everything by heading to the place his son, Chris, keeps in Miami, on the basis that there were much fewer people there to ask questions, try to be sympathetic or anything else to remind him of England’s shortcomings in the World Cup.
Hodgson likened it to a process of “grieving” and admitted he would probably never get over it properly bearing in mind the only real way would be to win the next competition. “Grieving is too strong a word, perhaps, but there is a process,” he said. “When you build up your hopes and expectations, harbouring dreams of seeing your team play well, and it doesn’t happen … there’s a period where you have to come to terms with that. You have to give yourself time to get back in some sort of balance.”
That process has now brought him into the Slovenia sunshine exactly a year since the ordeal in Brazil began with a 2-1 defeat against Italy and the England manager is fully aware there is an onus on his team to demonstrate they have genuinely improved in the last 12 months and that the Euro 2016 qualifying process is not acting as an illusion.
On that front, the disjointed performance in Dublin last weekend was badly timed but Hodgson was still entitled to point out England are unbeaten since the World Cup, with seven wins and two draws, and that the disappointment in the friendly against the Republic of Ireland was, in part, because it had become unusual to see his team huffing and puffing so aimlessly.
Hodgson made it clear straight after that match that he expected better, starting off with his captain, Wayne Rooney, but a week later it was noticeable that his initial irritation had made way for something more understanding. “Did I enjoy the game? No. Did I think we played well? No. Did the players think we played well? No. But it’s one of 1,300 games for me, and one of 600 for him [Rooney].
“These things do happen and we will benefit from that game. We needed it a lot more than I realised, with that break between the end of the season and playing again.”
The more concerning part came when Hodgson was asked whether England needed to “put on a show” to fall in line with his view that the team were on an upwards trajectory. That, he said, would be “very difficult” against this calibre of opponent, and briefly it felt like a trick of the mind that Slovenia are actually 48th in Fifa’s world rankings, just ahead of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Albania. “With some good individual performances, that could be interpreted as putting on a show, but we are concentrating on breaking them down, scoring goals and, if I’m brutally honest, winning the game,” Hodgson said. “I’d take a show or a lucky victory. At the end of the day, winning or not getting beaten are the important factors.”
It would have been reassuring, perhaps, to hear Hodgson demanding better entertainment before another game that really shows what a desperately weak qualifying group England have been navigating. They have won their first five games, building a six-point lead, and it is a strange set of events indeed when a first-versus-second contest can be such a stress-free occasion. An argument could easily be made that there were more significant games in Dublin, Belfast and Cardiff over the last couple of days, although that does tend to ignore the fact England have to avoid losing to prevent the debate turning in a direction Hodgson would not appreciate.
All his players are fit and there was good sense in arranging a training session at the 16,000-capacity Stozice to help the players get used to a late-afternoon heat that quickly brought out the freckles on Rooney’s forehead. The stadium will be sold out and Hodgson, reflecting on the subdued atmospheres for the games against Italy and Ireland, believes that might actually suit England.
“It’s sometimes better for the players to have that volatility. It’s what they’re used to in the Premier League every week and there’s no danger they will soften your approach when it’s like that. In Italy, where I was expecting it to be hostile and noisy, it was actually very quiet, and it was the same in Ireland, too.”
The problem is that not many countries get too worked up about international friendlies these days. England have another to come against France in November before facing Holland, Spain and Germany next year and, in the meantime, the team’s position in Group E must be put in context against the standard of opposition.
San Marino come next in September and England could do with Rooney using these occasions to score the two goals he needs to move alongside Sir Bobby Charlton’s total of 49, as the country’s all-time leading scorer. Rooney sounded like he might be experiencing what Gary Lineker went through after reaching 48 in 1992 and rolled his eyes when he was asked whether the record was on his mind. Smiling, he pointed out he was “fed up with answering the question”, which indicated the answer was probably yes.
