Italy and Germany show us the way

Last night I watched the best match of the 2006 World Cup. It seems I'm not the only one who thought so.

The quality of the football between Italy and Germany was so demonstrably superior to anything we saw from England in this tournament that afterwards I felt a little less sore about our elimination.

The point is that up until last Saturday, we were told - by Sven Goran Eriksson and by a mainly compliant media desperate to talk up our chances - that we were somehow in the same league as these guys. In truth though we never were.

Do we know how to thread passes together, maintain posesession, or even how to defend like the Germans and the Italians do? No, we don't, although briefly, under Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle in the 90s, we did aspire to play like that.

It was the right result too. Italy were marginally the better side all night and it was great to see Grosso diplaying a touch of the Tardellis at the end in his goal celebration.

As I said at the start of the World Cup, I will always support the Italians against all other teams apart from England, so I'm with Marcello Lippi's men all the way now.

That said, I won't be too sad if Zidane and Co walk off with the prize for France. It would be one of the great sporting comebacks of all time, and it would be the kind of story that gives hope to old gits everywhere.

Just so long as it isn't Portugal....

Are city regions a runner for Labour?

In my newspaper columns at the weekend I focused on the Government's plans for "city regions" as outlined by Ruth Kelly in a speech last week.

The idea is to use the "London model" of an elected mayor with powers cutting across local authority areas to streamline accountability and galvanise economic development across eight major conurbations.

It's a good idea in theory, but to my mind, it raises different issues for different cities.

Manchester and Birmingham are already city regions and the plan makes a good deal of sense there. I am less sure whether it makes sense for Newcastle, and I am absolutely damned sure it makes no sense for Nottingham. Derby and Leicester, which was ludicrously labelled a potential "city region" by one of Ms Kelly's spokespeople, even though no-one in either city has actually suggested it.

Accordingly, the issue was given different treatment in each of the different columns I wrote about it.

The Newcastle Journal column can be read HEREwhile the North West Enquirer version can be viewed HERE. Unfortunately the other two are not online yet.

England: The inquest

What to say about England's elimination from the World Cup by Portugal in a penalty shoot-out after having their star player sent off? Well, in one sense, you really couldn't make it up, in that if you had done, everyone would have gone: "Nah, that couldn't possibly happen again now, could it?"

But lightning does, it seems, strike twice in the same place, in that what happened on Saturday was precisely what happened against Argentina in 1998 when Beckham was sent-off and then David Batty missed in the shoot-out to condemn England to defeat.

All the national newspaper pundits have had their say, and there's no point me linking out to them all. But for me the best summing-up of the selectorial and tactical mistakes by which Sven-Goran Eriksson blighted England's challenge came from the Observer's Paul Wilson.

"By the time Eriksson had taken a blind leap of faith over Walcott and decided four strikers would be plenty even if two of them were injured, he appeared to be behaving as if distracted...his entire philosophy now seemed to be based on the premise that you might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb, and so the cautious, studied approach disappeared in favour of bizarre selections and a new formation every week. And still England played terribly."

Quite. But I think that, collectively, the national media - and I'm not singling out Paul Wilson or any other individual here - can sometimes be guilty of 20/20 hindsight in relation to such issues.

To me, it was obvious from the start that this squad had been poorly selected, and that as a result of that, the team was performing poorly and Eriksson failing to make the best use of the available talents at his disposal.

Yet the papers, for quite understandable reasons, seem to see it as their patriotic duty to get behind our boys and not question too closely either the validity of the team selections of the effectiveness of the performances, even if these things are staring them in the face.

Take Theo Walcott, for instance. There should have been a press campaign against this crazy selection, ahead of Jermaine Defoe. Instead they simply took it on trust that Eriksson knew what he was doing, and that the untested 17-year-old really could become England's latest World Cup hero. In fact, Eriksson himself didn't even believe in him.

Similarly, the media have been muted in their criticisms of Frank Lampard who was, to put it bluntly, not worth his place in the team in this tournament. He was obviously trying too hard to score and his presence in central midfield inhibited Steven Gerrard, the one player apart from Rooney who could have won the thing for us.

Eriksson's reluctance to drop one of his stars distorted the team formation throughout the campaign, forcing him into playing a negative 4-5-1 when we would have been far better off with Rooney and Crouch up front and Gerrard at the head of a midfield diamond.

World Cups are often about discovering your best formation. That's what happened in Italia '90. If England had not switched to 3-5-2 in that tournament when Bryan Robson went home injured, we'd never have got near the semi finals. And of course we only discovered Geoff Hurst in '66 as a result of an injury to Jimmy Greaves.

For my part, I never believed England could win this World Cup. Yes, we had the players to do it, but not the management capable of getting them to play together as a team. I am far more shocked by the elimination of Argentina, whom I am happy to admit I tipped for glory at the outset and who possessed, in Juan Roman Riquelme, the player of this tournament

At the start of this World Cup, I listed my Top 10 World Cup memories, and reminiscences of Italia '90 inevitably loomed large in that. Sadly, there is nothing from the 2006 tournament that I will be adding to that list.

What was so memorable about the challenge by Bobby Robson's men was that it was so unexpected, in contrast to this over-hyped side and their over-hyped manager who somehow managed to convince a nation that we had a genuine chance of the world's greatest prize.

It's not all doom and gloom. In 2010, Rooney will be in his prime. Robinson, Terry, Gerrard, Hargreaves (a star yesterday), Joe Cole and Aaron Lennon could still be around to form the nucleus of a new team. It's not a bad basis on which to build.

But as for Sven, it really is goodbye...and good riddance.

Update: Throughout the World Cup, I have helped produce a series of podcasts with colleagues on the this is...network of websites. Now England have packed their bags, we're hanging up our mikes, but our final verdict on England's campaign can be heard HERE.

That's enough by-election baloney

You could draw all sorts of conclusions from last night's by-election results in which Labour failed to regain Blaenau Gwent and the Tories held onto Bromley by a whisker. To take just three examples:

* Labour cannot win either in Middle England or its heartlands, given its defeat in Wales and fourth place in Bromley.

* The Tories' modernisation agenda has been a failure, given that the party's vote in Bromley dropped by 11,000.

* The Lib Dems' strong performance in Bromley, coming within 633 votes of victory, means Ming Campbell's leadership is now secure.

And it's all complete baloney.

Although by-elections do have an impact on national politics and party morale, they tell us very little about the overall mood of the nation.

A classic example was the Darlington by-election in 1983. The SDP-Liberal Alliance went into it with high hopes, but Labour's Ossie O'Brien won with the Tories in second place.

The result had a profound political impact. It secured Michael Foot in his leadership of the Labour Party, foiling an NEC plot to replace him with Denis Healey, and that in turn convinced Mrs Thatcher to call a General Election, certain that she could not lose to the veteran leftie.

She was right of course - but what happened at Darlington? The Tories' Michael Fallon won the seat, with O'Brien in second place and the Alliance a distant third.

Similarly, I don't think the results in eiother Blaenau Gwent or Bromley tell us anything at all about how voters would behave nationally if there were to be a General Election tomorrow.

The Welsh Labour Party has got itself into a characteristic pickle in Blaenau Gwent, but it is effectively a little local difficulty, as Macmillan might have put it.

And Bromley? Well, there seems to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Tory blogosphere today about their narrow squeeze, but they should relax.

As I have written on Mr Dale's blog - and as I am sure all England fans will agree - a win is a win is a win.

Yet another Dead Tree Press diatribe against the political blogosphere

With 114,000 hits a month he doesn't need any publicity from me, but this exchange between Iain Dale and a rather ill-informed Independent leader-writer has to be seen to be believed.

It comes hard on the heels of the Catherine Bennett episode earlier this month in which the Guardian columnist bemoaned the male domination of the blogosphere.

I don't think this is really about gender politics at all. As I said on that occasion, it has much more to do with the strange mixture of fascination and contempt that the mainstream media appears to hold towards the world of blogging.

In fact it strikes me that the relationship is becoming not unlike that which exists between the Lobby and politicians - both needing eachother while simultanesouly despising the other.

For Labour, all roads lead to Manchester

The Daily Telegraph believes he's now ready to go next year. Meanwhile the Grauniad says he wants to thrash out a new private understanding with Gordon Brown over the timing of the handover. Nick Robinson ain't convinced, and reckons "events" might yet come to his rescue.

So does all this tell us anything new about Tony Blair's political future? Well, the triple by-lines on the two broadsheet tales suggest to me a slight hedging of bets, perhaps...?

The one thing most pundits seem to agree on though is that the thing needs to be sorted out by the time of Labour's conference in Manchester this September, or risk that event turning into a media shambles dominated by speculation about the succession.

Here's what I wrote on this particular issue in the Manchester-based North-West Enquirer a week ago

"For the Labour Party now, it seems all roads are pointing to Manchester, where this year’s annual conference will take place - the first to be held at a non-seaside venue for many years.

"The pattern of Labour conferences in recent years has been a big speech by Brown on the Monday, setting out his vision and leadership credentials, followed by a defiant message from Blair on the Tuesday that he’s here to stay.

"It won’t work this time round. Everyone knows Blair is going, and Brown has made too many leader-in-waiting speeches for another one to be taken seriously.

"Hence it is my hunch that the Prime Minister will not be able to leave Manchester without being forced to do the one thing he most wants to avoid: to name the date for his departure."

The Guardian story suggests that Blair still wants to avoid giving a public commitment by reaching a private understanding with Brown. But once it is obvious that such a private understanding has been reached, it will also be obvious that Blair is going next year.

In this context, Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home has set up this site where visitors can log their predictions of the Prime Minister's exact departure date, with the chance to win £500.

I won't be entering myself because, as a journalist, I don't believe in betting on political outcomes which you might have to write about and which you might thereby be in a position to influence in some small way.

That said, I'm happy to accede to Tim's request to add the link for anyone else who wants to try their luck.