Friday 19th May 2006
ANFIELD ONLINE LFC NEWS

CARRAGHER URGES ENGLAND TO ADOPT LIVERPOOL APPROACH

Carra: 'In finals we play like kids in a schoolyard'

The notion may not find much favour with monarchists or Mancunians, but England could do worse than to adopt You’ll Never Walk Alone as their national anthem.

After all the disappointments, the scuffed penalties, the broken bodies and the agonising inevitability of the quarter-finals, an infusion of Scouse spirit and the ethos of Bill Shankly would be welcome in Germany.

From their dramatic passage to Istanbul a year ago and the breathless recovery against AC Milan, to their narrow victory over West Ham United in the FA Cup, Liverpool have reinvented themselves as the least accommodating losers in football. “With 20 minutes to go, if the score is not right, it becomes a life-and-death thing,” Jamie Carragher said. “You have to give it everything.”

Under Sven-Göran Eriksson, England have shied away from high-tar, unfiltered commitment in tournament conditions. There have been moments of frenetic pressure, such as David Beckham’s one-man onslaught against Greece in 2001 and the dismemberment of Germany earlier the same year, but in competitions there has been an insipid pallor to their performances.

There are lessons to be drawn from Liverpool’s cramp-inducing efforts, from the Champions League to Cardiff, although Carragher, the defender, has a caveat to add. “We always seem to get to these finals by keeping things tight and then when we get there all hell breaks loose,” he said. “It’s like a kids’ game in the schoolyard, end to end. You’re so desperate not to lose.”

Yet after the defeat by Brazil in Shizuoka, Japan, four years ago and the shoot-out trauma against Portugal two years later, there is a clamour among England supporters for their team to be bold. If Liverpool can do it without Wayne Rooney, why can’t an England squad with the verve of Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Michael Owen and David Beckham? “Liverpool’s never-say-die attitude can be transferred to England, certainly when it comes to the knockout games,” Carragher, 28, said. “If you go behind, you can’t always be gung-ho because the top teams will pick you off, but in the latter stages of games, you just have to throw everything at it, really go for it and hopefully it will come right.” More reckless than Eriksson is renowned for, but less sterile, too.

“The World Cup is every four years and some players never get the chance again,” Carragher said. “You keep going, like we do at Liverpool. You need that in a tournament. There are times when it’s going to be tough, but if you’re going to win, sometimes you need to go through the pain barrier to get your rewards.”

Be it luck, injuries or attitude, something must change. “The fact that England have only ever won one cup is either unbelievable or not good enough,” Carragher said. “Look at the players we’ve had. Greece have won the European Championship, but we haven’t. Everyone else can, why can’t we? For whatever reason, we always fall short. We’re sick of coming close.”

In Germany, England may have a secret weapon (another one, besides Theo Walcott). It may seem peculiar to speak of Gerrard in those terms, but this will be the midfield player’s debut in the World Cup finals. Eriksson’s challenge — and perhaps his greatest failing to date — has been to unleash Gerrard’s talents and forget about harnessing them.

“Stevie has done it on every other stage,” Carragher said. “He has won a lot of trophies and probably the one thing missing from his career is to really show what he’s made of in the World Cup arena. He can be massive for us in Germany. He is probably in the top five or six players in the world. In my opinion, he’s the best.”

Capable of operating as a second striker, Gerrard could compensate for Rooney’s absence. “He can have an impact there,” Carragher said. “We can do well without Wayne. You don’t want to lose a good player, but he wasn’t going to win it on his own. He was going to get a lot of help from everyone. Hopefully he’ll still be one of the top stars, but we have enough players to compete without him.”

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George Caulkin, The Times