Though we — the kind and generous masses — want nothing but happiness for Sam Allardyce in his England career, we extend our wishes with sadness in our eyes and foreboding in our hearts. For no matter how much of Allardyce we see over the coming years, proudly donning his England polyester polo, we’ll never really see Allardyce’s England. A FIFA technicality means that there will forever be a Steven N’Zonzi shaped-hole in midfield, and a nation of eternal hopefuls continuing to wonder what could have been. Damn those France under-21 appearances.
Sam Allardyce’s recruitment of Steven N’Zonzi to England tells you everything about his philosophy
FIFA technicalities have curtailed Sam Allardyce’s Darwinian pragmatism.
Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images
For the benefit of those who missed the story over the weekend, Allardyce confirmed that he had taken an interest in bringing the Sevilla midfielder N’Zonzi — who had spent time at both Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City — into the England international fold. The fact N’Zonzi was French weighed on the mind of neither Allardyce nor the player himself, whose father was initially responsible for the creative suggestion. Alas, FIFA then intervened to scupper the master plan, "after it emerged [N’Zonzi] played for the France under-21 side seven years ago" — before he was eligible to play for England.
The upshot is that the brief possibility of N’Zonzi playing for England will go down as nothing more than quirky trivia; he joins exotic names like Mikel Arteta, Manuel Almunia and Adnan Januzaj on a list of players born outside of England subjected to fleeting Football Association flirting. However, when it comes to Allardyce’s England, N’Zonzi’s absence will be a more meaningful one. It deprives us of eternal entry into Allardycean footballing nirvana, of the full realization of the great man’s England blueprint.
In short, Allardyce and the image — now merely a mirage — of N’Zonzi in an England shirt are as perfectly aligned as yin and yang. For though Allardyce is often seen as a totem of English football management — carrying all of the ideological baggage entailed therein — his history suggests nothing of the sort. He is instead an arch-pragmatist, a ruthless statistician for whom victory never carries a price. As a result, romanticism and nostalgia is conspicuous only in its absence.
Whereas the sheepskin-coated stereotype would’ve balked at the possibility of offering Johnny Foreigner a place in the England midfield through nothing but St. George’s Flag-tinted spectacles — think of the ‘England for the English’ sentiment espoused by Jack Wilshere a couple of years ago — such a exclusionary fantasy clearly never crossed Allardyce’s mind. The decision to ask FIFA of N’Zonzi’s availability was based on cold, hard numbers.
Allardyce’s arch-pragmatism may, on first glance, appear a miserable and one-dimensional trait, but there’s no doubting that it drives a creativity of its own. N’Zonzi at Stoke was one of the Premier League’s most consistent defensive midfielders, and yet only with Allardyce’s appointment has the possibility of his appearing for England been seriously raised. It’s an ingenuity that could also be seen during Big Sam’s time at Bolton, most notably when the statistical outputs of nominal centrer-forward Henrik Pedersen led to his sporadic and successful deployment as a makeshift fullback. Other managers may have recoiled at the idea, their imagination limited to the existing tactical paradigm. For Allardyce, not so. Convention? Emotion? The nation-state? Bah!
Finally, there’s the simple fact that if you had to design an Allardyce player, they’d look something like N’Zonzi. He's not just a very competent defensive anchorman, but he's a veritable giant, towering above his midfield counterparts almost without exception. He gobbles up opposition hoofs, he shields the defense, he’s a danger on set pieces, and, having spent time learning from the most pre-eminent exponents of Britain’s modern long-ball game — Allardyce and Tony Pulis — he’s more than capable of playing the percentages.
The result of N’Zonzi’s exclusion is that the England international team for the next few years will only ever be Allardyce-Lite. Just as England under Roy Hodgson never really looked like Hodgson’s team — he fell victim to England’s own hype, abandoning his beloved counter-attacking in favor of an overambitious possession game — a little part of Allardyce’s England dream will always remain out of reach. A man as obsessed with winning may have scant regard for national sentiment, but unfortunately for him, pesky technicalities mean his Darwinian dream will never be realised.
See More:
