Who will best capture Roy Hodgson’s forbearing expression coming through the side door? It is well past the appointed time when the England manager’s arrival triggers a carnival of camera shutter noises, long lenses pointing straight at him.
The media room in which he now sits has lifesize cut-out photographs of hunkish and brooding England players bedecking the walls. Some are standing soldier-like while others are in action poses. A few of them seem to be playing long balls.
Team England's training and media HQ is on the camp of a military base beside Guanabara Bay, a stunning setting not far from Copacabana, and if the sight of so many soldiers looks incongruous during the current phoney war, you feel it will eventually come to appear apt.
Watching an England manager under questioning, with every smile, scratch or gesture met by the trigger fingers of photographers, tells you a lot about the climate of scrutiny he faces.
He must sometimes be tempted to scratch his arse.
Yesterday Hodgson faced no serious questions, just a few traditional gentle attempts to lure him into giving something away he did not intend, but there were some interesting answers.
On the business front he irritably dismissed questions over Steven Gerrard’s fitness – “There’s nothing wrong with him and I don’t understand that story at all” – and suggested Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would be fit to face Uruguay in England’s second match:
“The medics hope he’ll be ready.”
It was his downplaying of the young talent in his squad – Jack Wilshere and Adam Lallana were namechecked by the questioner – that was most interesting in that his well-chosen words effectively put it up to those players to deliver.
“We have a lot of potential, we have a lot of excitement, a lot of belief in this potential but I must advise some sort of caution because as yet the players haven’t had much chance in an England shirt to show that that potential can be realised. I personally think it will be . . .
“We know they can do it, we believe they can do it, but let’s just calm ourselves down a little bit before we start saying we have world-beaters in our squad, because to be a world-beater you’ve got to put your international shirt on and play very well.”
It was an interesting answer that demanded something of the men he chooses against Italy in Manaus this Saturday.
How important will possession be? What about conservation of energy? Each question carried an implication: that England teams are poor at keeping possession, that they run too much or too little.
Hodgson knew the game being played and his touch was generally assured.
A Brazilian journalist made him happy. "After 28 years you were able to take Switzerland back to the World Cup. How do you compare yourself to the manager you were then to as a manager today?"
Hodgson sat back in his seat and smiled. Click click click click click!
“That’s a very good question. It’s always very difficult to analyse yourself and to describe yourself. There’s no doubt that in 1994, we’re talking 20 years ago, in 20 years you’ve got to hope you’re evolved in some way, and that all the experiences, all the work you’re doing during that time is actually paying some sort of dividend and you’re actually improving rather than deteriorating. And I’m not just talking as a coach now, I’m talking as a human being as well.
“I think there’s only one danger as you get older in the coaching profession and that is that you could possibly lose some of your energy, some of your enthusiasm or your vitality. I would like to think – and this others will have to judge – that I haven’t lost any of those qualities, so therefore I would like to think I’m in a better position today than I was in 1994.”
The best question – or the most honest one in the sense that it’s what England fans truly want to know – came last. “Roy, is it your instinct to be cautious or fearless against Italy?” In other words, will we be seeing a tweaked version of the side from Euro 2012, or something more expansive more suited to a new and more exciting generation?
“I think it’s too simplistic a question for me to answer honestly. Seriously, I mean I don’t know really what I should say to that.”
“Do you have an instinct?” To a dismissed question it was a great follow-up.
“No… I don’t really work with instincts, I work with logic, I work with what we have to do in terms of our preparation. I would like to think that when the whistle blows I will feel confident that we’ve covered everything that it’s possible to cover with regard to Italy and what we’re facing, and then I won’t be thinking caution or fearlessness. I’ll be thinking are we doing the right things? Are we carrying out all the work that we’ve tried to do when Italy get the ball. Are we defending the way we want to defend when we get the ball? Are we attacking?”
Caution or fearlessness? You’ll be hearing more about that.
