England didn’t leave the Qatar World Cup empty-handed, they left it with the FIFA Fair Play award.
The Three Lions were the tournament’s most disciplined team, having picked up just one booking in their five games but, whatever way you look at it, it’s fair to say that it’s not the award they were looking for.
There’s an old saying that comes to mind, that nice guys finish last.
Reacting to the news on ITV’s live coverage of the World Cup final, both Gary Neville and Roy Keane are in agreement that, all things considered, this is more of a slight on Gareth Southgate’s team than it is a badge of honour.
Both men feel it’s an area where things went wrong for them. It’s often said that to win, you have to play on the edge and this was certainly a case in point for the eventual winners Argentina.
Paredes, Martinez, Otamendi – you name them – these boys play the game like the opposition are their worst enemies and Keane and Neville don’t believe England have this ruthlessness about them. Harry Maguire picked up England’s only booking of the campaign against the USA while, despite having played only three more games,
Argentina ended the tournament with 21 cautions. Beaten finalists France are known for their silky style but they picked up 11 yellows, while the Netherlands , arguably the competition’s next best team, had 13.
“We can’t applaud teams for getting too many yellow cards but one does seem a little bit too nice,” Neville said.
“You can be too nice in this game and England are too nice,” added Keane.
Meanwhile, the notoriously hard-to-please Cork-man gave Argentina plenty of praise for their win, and even encouraged the winners dance to their hearts’ content. He also had some words of praise for their manager Lionel Scaloni.
“The biggest problem for us is our hotel tonight,” Keane said dead-pan.
“They’ve been singing every night for the last two-and-a-half weeks, god knows what it will be like tonight…!
‘You’ve got to manage them and manage the egos, Scaloni had to make changes from the first game. Scaloni has gotten them over the line, he’s on the sideline kicking every ball with them. That’s what you want when you have this type of group of players.
‘Look at this, brilliant scenes. It’s brilliant.
‘Dance all you want! They will be dancing at the hotel tonight, they should be dancing for the next ten years!
‘That’s when you dance. That’s when you dance, when you win it.’
