Always deemed by England coaches to be too much of a luxury player
to adapt to England's work ethic on the international stage, Southampton's
loyal playmaker and talisman Matthew Le Tissier was nevertheless given a
handful of opportunities, even though Paul Gascoigne's awful run of injuries
in the early 90s, which had left his country desperately short of creativity,
had finally come to an end. Le Tissier's importance to Southampton and football
in general can never be overestimated, but there was always a feeling that he
was a little too much of an individual for a team based on collective responsibility,
and that he would be found out when playing alongside against men of equal
stature within their own positions on the park.
Le Tissier's stop-start England career ultimately became a nonentity. He started
by coming on as a sub for Gascoigne against Denmark in 1994 in Terry Venables'
first game in charge and made two more ineffectual sub appearances before an
experimental team was put out by Venables at the end of the year against the
Romanians (see photo above). A 1-1 draw was satisfactory but Matt still looked
a little out of place. As his club form continued to hit heights few would ever be
able to match, Venables kept trying him, but Le Tissier's big chance on a big
scale was blown by the riotous England fans in Dublin who forced an abandonment.
Venables didn't pick the Southampton man again but successor Glenn Hoddle,
maybe seeing something of his own frustrated England playing career within the
mistrust of Le Tissier's talent, gave him a start in his opening game in charge and
he responded well as England overpowered Moldova 3-0 in the first qualifier for
the 1998 World Cup. England won their next two qualifiers without Matt, but the
deep thinking of Hoddle calculated that the Southampton star was a worthy
replacement for the unavailable Gascoigne when Italy rolled into Wembley for the
biggest qualifier of the lot. England lost 1-0 and the inquest into the defeat involved
much finger pointing at Hoddle for selecting an individualised footballer in Le Tissier
against a team blessed with too much invention to take for granted. England still
qualified for the World Cup but Matt had finally been marked up as a player whose
laconic, indisciplined style didn't suit the very highest level of the game, and he
wasn't recalled. (Matthew Rudd) |