Emile Heskey has been around a long time as a professional footballer, so much so that most people thought he was too old to go to the World Cup in South Africa, let alone to ever be selected again to play football for England.
But, at thirty one years of age, Heskey is the same age as Craig Moore when he played in Germany 2006. Craig will be thirty six next year and likely to play in his second World Cup for Australia. If the Socceroos somehow sneak into the round of sixteen as the second team in the group and England win their group, it could even set up an elimination encounter to match up Moore against Heskey.
A change in England’s national football team manager has given Emile the chance of a lifetime to play in a World Cup. He is now more than likely part of Fabio Capello’s plans to win the 2010 World Cup for England.
England will probably take four dedicated strikers to South Africa. The main contenders are Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch, Carlton Cole, Jermaine Defoe, Michael Owen and Heskey. There are others being mentioned as possibilities as well, so the honour of leading the attack for the English at South Africa is being very hotly contested.
Capello, like Pim Verbeek, has a policy of selecting players that are playing regularly for their clubs. A policy that he can choose to break obviously, since he consistently picked Heskey to partner Rooney while the Aston Villa striker couldn’t get a game in the Premier League with Martin O’Neill.
Can Capello really continue to contradict his values by selecting Heskey and afford to leave out a player like Owen – a forty goal international striker, or Defoe, who is scoring better than a goal a game at the moment?
Critics of Heskey also point out that although he has played about the same number of games for England as John Terry, he has only scored about the same number of goals as Terry, a central defender.
Fabio Capello with Rooney and Heskey as the main twin strikers secured their place in next year’s World Cup after an almost flawless qualifying campaign and Capello, the arch-pragmatist and meticulous planner, will not have been lulled into a false sense of security by England’s relatively untroubled progress. He knows what he is doing.
Heskey offers Capello a range of options, namely strength, height, physical presence and selfless devotion to the team ethic appreciated by his colleagues. In the World Cup qualification campaign, Heskey bustled, worked hard to assist Wayne Rooney and continued to miss his goal scoring chances.
Heskey’s England career has been one long defiance of logic. A succession of England managers (plus highly-respected club managers it should be added) have accepted the seemingly flawed theory that one of their main strikers is not a noted goal scorer in exchange for his worth to the team as a whole. When Heskey scored against Kazakhstan in Almaty in June, it was his first goal for England in seven years – and yet team mates continue to sing his praises when questions are raised about his effectiveness.
At Liverpool, manager Gerard Houllier often played Heskey ahead of Robbie Fowler on the basis that he brought more out of Michael Owen than a player like Fowler who, in terms of natural gifts, Emile simply could not match. It is a pattern that has been repeated throughout his career.
Heskey has played his part in some of England’s best recent victories, but is not even a regular at Aston Villa and his goal record has always been very ordinary. If a player like Defoe does not go to South Africa to play for England now he never will, because he is in the hottest of hot goal scoring streaks this season.
Capello’s view will also be shaped by the fact that Heskey’s role is a battering ram of sorts and an outlet that can release pressure on England, helping bring the best out of Rooney. This has to be at the forefront of his thinking and goes much of the way in explaining Heskey’s continued England presence.
Rooney will probably carry much of England’s goal scoring hopes in South Africa and Capello is smart enough to know all his attacking plans mustn’t rely solely around him as the lone striker. Capello must decide who partners him as they attempt to apply the finishing touches to their World Cup preparations. Is there still a compelling case for him to continue with Heskey at the expense of the other more fancied goal scorers?
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