Quite the best piece about any sport you’re likely to read in a long time is a vibrant profile of Roger Federer in the New Yorker the other day by the octogenarian art critic Calvin Tomkins. In the course of it the Fed observes: ‘The problem with experience is that you become content with playing it safe. I have to push myself to stay dangerous, like a junior player — to play free tennis, but with the mental stability of an older player.’
Before the World Cup Bayern Munich’s Thomas Müller had won just two caps for Germany, Werder Bremen’s Mesut Özil had made five appearances for his country, as had his fellow midfielder Sami Khedira. All three of these young men (Khedira is the oldest at 23) have enjoyed sparkling tournaments in a team that was not expected to get to the business end of Fifa’s grand shebang. Germany coach Joachim Low might have been told that you don’t win anything with kinder, but he had the faith to let these boys go out and play and they didn’t let anyone down. Their football was sprinkled with the carefree joy that comes when youth, talent and belief are allowed to blend naturally. It might not seem terribly German, but then look what happened to England.
Fabio Capello’s collection of minted veterans didn’t do much for a tournament that had already been given a pretty nasty odour by France and Italy, also teams that were afraid to embrace youth and the possibilities that it brings. There is nothing wrong with experience in the sporting arena, but often with experience comes the fear of innovation. If you do what you are told and things go wrong, it can’t be your fault, can it?
English sporting culture, especially football, is rather like the country itself: stuck in the past, obsessed with the war, and deeply suspicious of youth. After all, we’re not here to enjoy ourselves. But sport is about enjoyment: that’s why we started playing in the first place. And if you start to empower youth, even in England teams, then results start to show. Thankfully nobody coached the freedom and variety of shots out of Craig Kieswetter and Eoin Morgan ahead of the World T20, and when Martin Johnson’s stick-it-up-your-jumper rugby team finally broke free of their safety-first shackles in Australia, led by Ben Foden at full-back and Ben Youngs at scrum-half, they contrived to beat the Wallabies a week after being written off. And a sense of fun seems to have taken over at that greyest of Formula 1 teams, McLaren. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are both happy in their own skins and in each other’s company. This is now a team far removed from the antiseptic and joyless outfit that got embroiled in several ‘gate’ scandals in recent years. Let’s see if they keep it up this Sunday at Silverstone.
When the Ryder Cup rolls around in October Europe’s golfers will be very much the favourites against the Americans. Corey Pavin will have Phil Mickelson to call on but the home team’s likely catalyst will be Rory McIlroy. The young Ulsterman is Seve incarnate — a grip-it, rip-it, find-it and do-it-all-over-again player who embraces risk, even if he sometimes slips up. He plays like he is having fun. By then England’s qualifying campaign for Euro 2012 will be underway. Capello and his — hopefully new — players have a choice. They can stick to what they know best, the bleeding obvious, that has served them, and us, so poorly, or trust in youth and vitality. They must leave South Africa behind and start anew. It’s time for them to enjoy themselves again.
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