Bravo, Roy. The English aren’t traditionally very good at handing out measured praise. Just as the English also aren’t very good sometimes at taking charge of painful, unscripted moments. Forget the football for just a moment longer. Before the wheels begin to turn again, as they must, it is worth noting for the record that in a messy, bewildering week for football, Roy Hodgson has handled the moment with grace, resilience and comforting good sense.
It is a human virtue to take comfort from small things. Driven into unmapped territory, required to oversee the offer of ceremonial public comfort at France’s first public event since the Paris atrocities, Hodgson got things just right. And in the best English way, too, without show, without vanity, at times without warning.
Towards the end of Tuesday’s post‑match press conference in Wembley’s basement amphitheatre, England’s manager was just getting up to leave when a French journalist called out for a last question on his players’ response to the weight of the occasion. Hodgson insisted on taking it, answering off the cuff in fluent, emotionally articulate French, albeit with a distinctly Roy twang in the accent.
“The most emotional moment was when we read the words of the Marseillaise on screen and saw the French team sing with such fervour,” Hodgson said. “The only thing we could do was show our solidarity and sympathy. But it’s France that must live through these horrible moments.”
For all the well-staged formalities, this was perhaps the simple and natural show of sympathy. Arguably there has been no better “official”, non-political statement of support offered from this side of the Channel. Forget the playing side of things for now. Never mind that football also often gets it wrong, from violence, to bigotry, to the jackanapes and bedroom tough guys of social media. At that moment, in the tenderest surroundings, it felt pretty good to have a grown-up in the room.
Of course this is not simply about Hodgson being able to speak a foreign language (and those who sneer at this traditional English weakness should read George Orwell on the innate structural difficulties of learning English first and then another language).
It wasn’t the language but the content of Hodgson’s words that made you feel oddly proud. Plus there was undoubtedly something perfectly pitched about being able to switch tongues at exactly the right moment. Hodgson has travelled and learned, two things to which the English are often rather averse. In a sense his life has prepared him, indirectly, for just such a moment.
And so a significant duty was dispatched with a sure hand. Just as it was before kick-off in that unplanned fraternal hug with Didier Deschamps, and in Hodgson’s pre-match press conference when he also spoke in French and provided the required reassuring, controlled presence.
There is a reminder here that being a national team manager is in itself a minor but very visible branch of international relations, as close as sport gets to a ceremonial, diplomatic role. The lineage of England managers may contain its fair share of the desperate and the shifty. But the most affectionately remembered have had similar qualities. Bobby Robson was hounded for years and redeemed at the last but he retained that endearing sense of decency. Graham Taylor suffered terribly but it didn’t ever quite bend him out of shape.
Whatever happens to Hodgson from here, whatever agonies the on-field endgame of his time as England manager may bring, we will now remember him also for this. Whoever you might choose to blame for the fact the players and the team aren’t what they were, our own 66-year-old, much-travelled, well-read, endearingly ruminative Europhile Roy – formerly of Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Croydon and Finland and welcomed pretty much wherever England travel by some friend in the opposition ranks – was exactly the right man to be the manager during the most extraordinary friendly international of modern times. Vive le Roy!
And so, back to football then. Could there be some additional significance here? Certainly in the middle of these extraordinary events England’s manager has never looked so quietly authoritative, so at home carrying out the various duties of what became, once again and however briefly, one of the most important jobs in the country.
This may be unrelated to the main business of winning football matches but such adeptness is still a function of Hodgson’s own resources and qualities. And from the start his time as England manager has, in a sense, been a struggle for legitimacy. Hodgson was an excellent on-the-hoof organiser when Fabio Capello – the most grudging and graceless of all recent England managers – resigned in the runup to Euro 2012.
All England managers achieve a point of strength at some stage. Sven‑Goran Eriksson’s best came before the 2002 World Cup, before the Swede himself became synonymous with more material concerns. Capello’s period of authority grew from a thrillingly severe thrashing of Croatia, The Hammers Of McClaren, before the disastrous 2010 World Cup.
For Hodgson this is perhaps it. Through an unbeaten qualifying campaign against below-par opponents he has, all the same, been quietly making some interesting choices. Some have been appalled at the mass promotion of young players. Others might suggest that Hodgson has nothing to lose and potentially something to gain by doing more, not less, of this.
England managers have always tended to be conservative, to observe the hierarchies of age and experience. And yet we know what will happen if the more well-worn England team, the current generation of 24-to-30-year-olds, play en masse at the Euros. England may have some early success. But they will, as they always do, lose to the first good team they play.
With Hodgson yet to agree his fate after the Euros – read into that what you will – there really is nothing to lose in taking untried talent, players who may bloom and play without fear, players the wider England support may actually watch with some fascination. John Stones is a fine talent: more to the point his game is simply suited, tactically and texturally, to the way international football is played. Similarly, the best qualities of Dele Alli, who may not end up being in the squad when everyone else is fit, are calmness, mobility and technical skill on the ball. There really is nothing not to like here.
In Stones, Alli, Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley, Eric Dier, Harry Kane and, if he returns in time, Luke Shaw, Hodgson has a group that will learn and improve from playing international football. No modern England manager has taken the genuinely bold step of chucking out the chintz and making a systemic point of choosing younger, unscarred players who are at least as talented as those tried before. But then these are unusual times in many ways.
This is of course a side issue right now, a thought in isolation. Perhaps, empowered and given confidence by the qualifying campaign, his command of non-playing matters, even his own potential departure, Hodgson may yet experience a late-blooming epiphany of clarity and boldness.
For now, though, whatever the next eight months bring, it is enough simply to offer a moment’s quiet appreciation for an England manager who was able to offer sure-footed and exemplary calm in a terrible moment.
