Heat tests? The World Cup winners will be coolest on the ball

Times

2 days ago

The best laid plans and all that. Back in 1993, England were playing Norway in Oslo. The World Cup qualification process was in a perilous state but Graham Taylor, the manager, had a trick up his sleeve. He was going to play three at the back, with Gary Pallister picking up Norway's tall striker Jostein Flo. The problem was that he feared this plan would get out. Specifically, he was worried that the employee detailed by the Norwegian federation to act as liaison officer for England's trip would leak it to the hosts.
So he came up with another ruse. Secretly, Taylor switched the time and place of the intended pre-match training location, and the team bus left without the Norwegian official. Brilliant. The action now switches to the home of the chief sports correspondent of VG, at the time Norway's biggest-selling newspaper, which looked on to the sports facility of a large military base. Hello, is that the England team bus pulling on to the complex? Indeed it is. And is that the England team running out to begin training? Indeed they are. Can we get a photographer here to capture it all in detail? Indeed we can.
That is how the specifics of Taylor's intended strategy came to be plastered all over the first few pages of VG on the morning of the match, complete with images of training taken through barbed-wire fences, making England's mission appear ever more ludicrous. Egil Olsen, the Norway manager, moved Flo wide, effectively turning Pallister into a left back, Norway won 2-0 and England were staring at a premature World Cup exit.
I was reminded of this when reading that England are undergoing specialist heat testing and training at a secret location in Girona this week. 'The FA is not sharing the precise location,' The Times reported at 6.45pm on Monday night. 'They are staying at the Camiral Golf and Wellness Resort,' reader Patrick Doherty posted in the comments section within minutes of publication.
I can't confirm whether this is true. I really don't care. I haven't made a phone call to check because I would hate the FA to think I was being nosy, or was even interested. I've looked at the Camiral Golf and Wellness Resort online, however, and if they're not staying there, someone has slipped up. It looks exactly the sort of place England usually reside. Fabulously appointed, voted the No1 golf resort in Spain, two courses, amazing facilities; to think the FA imagined Thomas Tuchel was going to hang around St George's Park to do this job. The squad enjoyed what was described as a bonding session at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday and then headed roughly an hour north to the finest golf resort in Spain to acclimatise to warm weather. 'Suffering is one of the headlines for this World Cup,' Tuchel said. Sounds hellish.
And that's how easy it is for a cunning plan to go up in smoke. If the team are at the Camiral Golf and Wellness Resort, I'm guessing so is Mr Doherty; he lives there, or he's staying there or he played there, and he saw them. And so would hundreds of others because that's the modern world. Back in 1993, the man from VG had to call his photographer from a landline and hope he picked up. These days, he would be snapping away on his phone in high definition the moment the bus arrived. He could take a video; maybe even live stream it. And, by the way, I'd wager the reporters covering England right now all know where this heat testing is taking place but, out of goodwill, are abiding by the FA's omertà. The point is this: learn to pass, learn to keep the ball, learn to dictate the game, learn to dictate the pace of the play. That's what wins the World Cup. That's why England lose. They don't control the game. And, in heat, in cold, in any climate in which football is played, ultimately, as standards rise deeper into the competition, that's unsustainable.
Look, no harm in trying. If Tuchel is armed with reams of data revealing who suffers most in the heat, it cannot do any damage. Yet what if the tests show that Harry Kane struggles most. Will Tuchel not start him, based on that; or is he going to hope that, before fatigue sets in, his captain and talisman does enough to put England in a winning position? Ivan Toney, after all, has been playing in Saudi Arabia all season. If heat training actually gets players used to extreme temperatures, making them comfortable, surely he is streets ahead already?
Does it work like that? Barry McGuigan trained in the desert before his featherweight title fight with Steve Cruz in 1986, but it still didn't prepare him for 15 rounds in a Las Vegas car park in mid-afternoon. Cruz was a Texan of Mexican descent — real name Estevan — McGuigan from Belfast, where the highest recorded temperature was 29.7C in 1983.
With a canvas sheet over the ring, which trapped heat more than kept the sun off, McGuigan fought Cruz in 43C. Somehow, he was ahead on points going into the final round, but almost delirious with dehydration and heat-related exhaustion. As early as the tenth, he can be heard asking his corner to say a prayer 'that we'll be all right' such is the physical toll. McGuigan was knocked down three times in the final round and lost the fight. Rising from his stool, he remembers being broken and confused, and Cruz did not even land clean punches to take him down. McGuigan was unable to stand for the judges' scorecards and left the scene in an ambulance, accompanied by his priest, Father Brian D'Arcy. He admitted fearing for his life. McGuigan was a great fighter, but Cruz was born into that heat, and no training could prepare for it.
And you may think this a cynical view, but we have been here before. 'No team will be better prepared than us,' Ray Lewington, England's assistant coach, said before the squad left for Miami in 2014, prior to the World Cup in Brazil. 'Roy Hodgson is a stickler for detail. It has to be perfect. We've gone up to a new level for this World Cup and I'd be very surprised if anyone was doing something we are not covering.' Then the 77-strong group of staff and players touched down in Florida and had their preparations impacted by something called hurricane season. Training sessions were washed out, and the final warm-up game with Honduras was delayed for 41 minutes by a spectacular electrical thunderstorm, with the referee Ricardo Salazar taking the players off. From this utterly unforeseeable annual event, the best prepared team at the World Cup then headed to Brazil, where they failed to win a game and were eliminated after two matches.
Tuchel's England should fare better than that, not least because with 48 teams involved in next year's tournament it will be considerably harder to land in an old-fashioned 'group of death'. And being prepared is never a bad idea. As manager of Argentina, Diego Maradona once dismissed the unique challenge of playing at high altitude in Bolivia, refused the option of arriving early or even training in the stadium, then saw several of his players collapse and require emergency oxygen on the night. Argentina lost 6-1. So, yes, make use of available data. Credit Tuchel and his backroom team, too, with finding a way of at least making Saturday's match against Andorra useful. Better this than a week at St George's Park preparing to shoot fish in a barrel.
Yet, when the whistle blows in June next year, whatever the mercury says, the oldest of truths remains. If England can't keep the ball, if England can't control the play, they might as well have stayed on the golf course.
Amorim's honesty: great for journalists, less so for United
Football writers appreciate Ruben Amorim, because he's honest. A straight question gets a straight answer. Sometimes an innocuous one gets a reply that makes the back page, too. He doesn't hide, he doesn't obfuscate.
In February, after Patrick Dorgu was sent off against Ipswich Town, Amorim responded by bringing Noussair Mazraoui on for Alejandro Garnacho. Only 44 minutes had elapsed and Garnacho walked straight down the Old Trafford tunnel. Asked about this after the game, Amorim first made a connection to a previous fallout with Marcus Rashford — confirming there was friction — then said he would be speaking to Garnacho about his reaction. 'I'll talk about that, if you want, in the next press conference,' he added, helpfully. A lot of managers would have played it down. Amorim corroborated a good story, then told everybody to come back later in the week for the follow up. If he carries on like this they'll build a statue to him at Old Trafford. Not outside, necessarily, but in the press box.
Amorim has been candid answering questions about players when others may have played down reports of friction
HASNOOR HUSSAIN/REUTERS
Whether the candid approach is always best for Manchester United, however, is another matter. By making it so clear that Garnacho has no future at the club, Amorim may have wiped many millions from his transfer fee. Chelsea may have thought they would need to play hardball to get him. Now they know United want Garnacho out and may pitch any offer accordingly. United can only hope others are interested and an auction dictates the price.
Antonio Conte's relationship with his employers at Chelsea never recovered after speaking so finally about his bothersome striker Diego Costa. The pair had fallen out, but Chelsea hoped he could still fetch a high price. After Conte was open about the rift and told Costa by text that he was not in his plans, that scheme collapsed. It was the beginning of the end for Conte, too. One hopes the hierarchy at United are more understanding of their coach's exasperation.
Huge National League crowd justifies mayor's U-turn
Having been hard on Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, in these pages last week over the closure of Wembley Park station and the resulting cap set on ticket numbers for the National League play-off final, it is only fair to acknowledge the part he played in getting restrictions lifted, aiding Sunday's record 52,115 attendance. It is to be hoped, however, that in future those in charge of logistics do not presume that football outside the Premier League is irrelevant or unsupported.
Oldham Athletic and Southend United pulled in a crowd in excess of the capacity at Hampden Park, Stamford Bridge or the Parc des Princes, home of the new European champions Paris Saint-Germain. It was an exceptional achievement, and should not be forgotten the next time Transport for London checks its diary seeking a free weekend.