Steve Maclaren will get £2.5 million compensation and is sacked. Half a dozen English football players get that much each in six months, and they are the ones who win or lose games. Why not start sacking football players from national teams when they don't perform - clearance sale in January?
More seriously, why should a man who tries to do his best, even if that in the end isn't good enough, be treated as if he had betrayed his country by selling its biggest secrets, or undermining its economy? A football game was lost at Wembley and the manager is savaged. A football match is lost at Hampden and the manager is head hunted by Birmingham. The English manager is humiliated in the press, and the Scottish manager's market value soars. But Scotland against Georgia were no better than England against Croatia.
I love football - but why the rancourous fervour and unforgiving pseudo-solemnity with which a man is sacked?
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