Dietmar Hamann has England’s problems all wrong

In an extract from his new autobiography published in the Independent on Sunday, Dietmar Hamann has compared Paul Gascoigne and Michael Ballack as an example of how the cultures of the two nations have led to the different levels of achievement.

It’s an annoying read, not just for the flawed thinking in the extract itself, but the way commenters have lapped up the nonsense he puts forth.

I want to make it clear that I admired Hamann as a player and respect him as a person, and have nothing against him or any of the teams he played for. But reaching the conclusions he does on a very limited amount of data is ridiculous. Hamann looks at one incident each from Michael Ballack and Paul Gascoigne’s career (in which each received a booking in a World Cup semi-final), and based on these, diagnoses the problem with English footballing culture as a whole.

Admittedly, the incidents are superficially very similar. Both were central midfielders in their early to mid-twenties, picking up a booking in the semi-final of a World Cup that would rule them out of the final should their team progress.

But beyond the superficial, there are differences in the events leading up to those matches, explaining the different mentality of the players and their reactions. To start with, there are differences between the stages of the career each player was at when the match occurred. Ballack, three years older at the comparable incident, had been a squad player in Euro 2000, so he had tournament experience and was hardened by international disappointment. Italia ’90 was Gascoigne’s first international tournament, and one that had gone incredibly successfully so far – most people would be in a dreamlike state of delirium, never mind someone as emotional as Gascoigne.

In addition, in the months before the 2002 World Cup, at club level Ballack had missed out on the league title on the final day, and had been a losing finalist in the German Cup and the Champions’ League. A harsh interpretation would be to call Ballack a serial bottler (not what I believe, but more rooted in fact than the conclusion Hamann reaches). But at the very least, Ballack must have been hardened to the disappointment of coming extremely close but missing out. He’ll have developed a mental resilience that events had not forced Gascoigne to develop. Whereas Gascoigne’s booking will probably have been a shock to the system, Ballack’s booking will probably have seemed like another example of the harsh truths the game teaches.

Hamann asserts that Ballack “was totally selfless” in the way he disciplined his mind and scored the winning goal four minutes later. That’s not necessarily the case. He may have missed out on the chance to play in a World Cup final, but he still had the chance to be part of a World Cup winning squad. And the fact that he’s remembered so fondly for scoring the winning goal in a semi-final against a team Germany should be beating more often than not, shows that he had something personal to gain in raising his game. Not that it’s any less impressive that Ballack raised his game, but to call it selflessness isn’t entirely accurate.

Hamann is also critical of Gascoigne, one of England’s designated penalty takers, for not taking a penalty in the subsequent shoot-out, instead asking David Platt to take his kick. While mental toughness is an important skill, it is possible to fetishise it beyond rationality.

If a player was carrying an injury that would affect his penalty-taking technique and had a high quality replacement on hand, then surely it makes sense to ask the colleague to step up. I’ve seen numerous cases when a player fouled for a penalty in normal time, slightly feeling the effects of a foul that he will take a few minutes to run off, asks a teammate to take the penalty for him. Emotions affect the physicality of the body – higher heart rate, muscle tension and so on – so why should asking a highly skilled colleague to step up be a problem?

I’d be more critical of Paul Ince making the same decision in Euro 96 – as an experienced pro, it would have been smarter for him to try and control his fear, rather than leaving his penalty to the young and inexperienced Gareth Southgate, who’d never taken a competitive penalty and had probably rarely practiced them. Platt, by comparison, would go on to take four penalties for England in normal time, so was evidently a high quality replacement.

A further flaw in Hamann’s thinking is the idea that Gascoigne represents the English mentality as a whole. Part of the reason ‘Gazza’ was so celebrated is that he remains so rare. Gascoigne was an exciting flair player, given the chance at the heart of the national team, who made the most of that opportunity – there hasn’t been too many of those down the years.

If Hamann must point at a single player to embody the current generation, there are better examples. There’s Joe Cole – talked about as the man to save England before he made his professional debut, who was eventually turned into a steady, seven out of ten player devoid of risk and invention. Steven Gerrard, a combative player of immense workrate and passing ability, only now developing the tactical discipline to go alongside those remarkable abilities. Looking back, Bryan Robson or Tony Adams would better represent the flaws of Gascoigne’s generation – combative players who often didn’t apply their mental and physical toughness smartly, implying that trying really hard, regardless of how that ability is applied, is the key to victory.

Watching the Chile match, it was evident how much we lack the guile of a Gascoigne. It was frustrating how mentally and physically sharper a relatively ordinary nation are than us. I saw a short England corner to a team-mate nicked away by a Chilean who subsequently went on a long run upfield twice. When probing in pursuit of an equaliser, England looked less comfortable than their opponents on the ball. Comparatively, we looked like a team of clunky, old-school centre halves.

The complicated truth is that, to win tournaments, a team needs to learn to excel at different, almost incompatible things. The way the current German team have combined the stereotypical German workrate and mental toughness with flair and invention is remarkable.

But mental toughness is not enough in itself to win tournaments. While I agree with Hamann in that England need more of an “esprit de corps” (lost, in Hamann’s view, because “the structures that maintained discipline and order in English society are being eroded”), self-discipline and toughness alone are not enough. It needs to be interwoven with creative bravery, the willingness to live on the edge, and test the limits of what the opposition can cope with.

Michael Ballack and Paul Gascoigne are not as different as Dietmar Hamann seems to think.