It's a cool, crisp morning in North Yorkshire, conditions taking the edge off last night's enthusiastic introduction to Theakston's bitter, and the aptly named Theakston's Old Peculiar. A gentle breeze and bluish skies should make for a very pleasant 18 holes this afternoon at Ripon (yesterday's golf at Masham was idyllic; you can't quite see an honesty box for green fees working in South Africa), and with an inordinate number of pubs still to explore this week, I have an industrious schedule ahead of me.

Squeezed into the golf and pub appreciation, however, will be the football, as Euro 2008 draws to a close on the continent. And that's been a topic of much discussion these past couple of days, for in between making cups of tea, talking about the weather to a pathological degree, and forming nice orderly queues wherever possible, football has had plenty of attention — and reinforced the fact that England and South Africa draw an unfortunate parallel at the moment.

Euro 2008 has been easy on the British nerves for a major tournament, for the simple reason that none of the home nations made it through to Switzerland and Austria.

For England, home to the world's biggest, richest, and arguably best league on the planet, this is particularly galling: two teams contesting the Champions League Final, but no place in the continental championship. Cue lots of muttering about 1966, and animated discussion about the coach. Underperforming side with grand ambitions unfulfilled; expensive foreign coach who hasn't delivered; a nation of passionate fans expecting far more than the side is delivering; no place in the continental competition. Sound familiar?

For England's big budget Italian and unwelcome summer holiday from the game, so we have Carlos Alberto Parreira's gardener, and almost no chance of playing in the Africa Cup of Nations in 2010, the same year in which we just happen to be hosting a rather important football competition. A competition, quite clearly, we wouldn't have qualified for if we weren't the hosts, and one in which any meaningful progress looks at best romantic, at worst embarrassingly impossible.

Simply pinning the blame on the new coach is easy, but unfair — he might not have done much, but it's a combination of factors at play. What is fair, though, is to look at what a genuinely good man at the helm can do, and at the moment, that man is Guus Hiddink. He worked wonders with Australia, and is now doing the same with Russia, displaying an ability to get the best out of a team hardly awash with superstars. Most football fans will be watching Hiddink covetously in the semifinals, and quite possibly the final; South Africans will head that list.

The English will also be watching with envy, as well as anticipation, for several of the Russian squad will doubtless make their way to the Premiership on the back of the European campaign. And that is some solace at least: an outstanding league to watch at home, and which offers a platform, surely, for an improved England side sooner or later.

For South Africa, however, a failed Cup of Nations qualifying campaign just reinforces the dire state of national football at the moment. Danny Jordaan heads a group currently at the European Championships, spreading the gospel of 2010; if you could pick up a Guus Hiddink at duty-free on the way home, Danny, we'd all be most appreciative. Heaven knows we could do with him.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za

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