SOMETHING had been nagging at me for a while. My senses had been inundated for weeks with news on the state of a young man’s toe, the hand towels at England’s hotel, and whether Erkisson’s crinkly smiles at press conferences were a portent of good fortune. Then I suddenly realised: amid all this suffocating hype, I’d heard almost nothing about England’s opponents. Paraguay remain a band of shadowy unknowns. How many of their number can you name? Bayern Munich bit-part player Roque Santa Cruz? The Keith Moon of goalkeepers, Jose Luis Chilavert? (Doesn’t count – he’s not playing anymore).
England fans should hope that the media’s obsession with the achingly banal minutiae of their own team’s preparation is not matched by Eriksson and his troops. “Know your enemy” counselled the ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu. Bizarrely, for a country whose media and fans revel in their military past whenever an international football tournament comes around (“Achtung!” bellows the newspaper, “What’s it like to lose a war?” sing the fans), this maxim of warfare does not seem to apply.
Eriksson, England fans must hope, will be better prepared. If his attitude to opponents is closer to The Super Soaraway Sun than Sun Tzu, a nasty surprise may lie in wait come Saturday.