How will England's group fare?

Home from home: England's adopted heroes relish prospect of Eriksson's men facing their compatriots

Nick Harris
Monday 20 May 2002 00:00 BST
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NIGERIA: JOHN CHIEDOZIE

'With players like Okocha, they can do very well'

From a war-torn Nigeria of the late 1960s to the sedate environs of a Hampshire school playing field, John Chiedozie has always been a firm believer that basic skills, taught early, are the bedrock of a successful footballer's career.

"Look at the best players ever, Brazilians, South Americans, and ask how they started," says the former Orient, Notts County, Tottenham and Nigeria winger. "I bet they all played on beaches as kids, or in bare feet. That way they perfect their skills and technique so much more."

Chiedozie himself did precisely that. "In Nigeria, we played in bare feet. Whatever we could find we kicked around," he says of an itinerant childhood, spent moving from village to village, dodging the bombs and bullets of the Biafran war. His parents separated when he was a baby and when his father moved to England in the Sixties to work as an engineer at the Ford motor plant in Dagenham, he and his three brothers were left in the care of their grandmother.

At the age of 12, in 1972, Chiedozie's father sent for him to come to England. "I moved to Forest Gate but I couldn't speak a word of English, couldn't write, the war had disturbed my education." Four years of intensive assistance from a sympathetic teacher remedied that, although it took less time to make progress on the pitch.

At 14, he was playing for a Sunday side in Newham. "Then I was spotted playing for the school team by George Petchey, who was the manager of Orient. I lived closer to West Ham, and trained there as a schoolboy, but I signed apprentice terms with the Os and that was that."

At Brisbane Road, he played alongside the likes of Stan Bowles and Ralph Coates. He still regards those years with the fondest memories. "It's a little club, a family club. They treated me well. Those were days when bigger clubs still bought their players from down the leagues."

So it was for Chiedozie, snapped up by Jimmy Sirrel's First Division Notts County, and later, in 1984, by a mighty Tottenham who had Hoddle and Ardiles in midfield and Crooks, Allen and Falco up front.

The 1984-85 season, the year when Chiedozie arguably played the best of his pacey, trick-laden, defence-skinning football down the flank, Spurs finished third behind Everton and Liverpool. In 1987 they achieved the same result, behind the same teams, in a year albeit bereft of medals but with an FA Cup final and Littlewoods Cup semi-final thrown in.

Short spells at Derby County, Meadow Lane (again) and Chesterfield followed, with his last game coming at Wembley in England's first-ever play-off final. Chesterfield lost 1-0 to a Dion Dublin goal for Cambridge to be denied promotion from the Fourth Division.

Since the early Nineties, Chiedozie, with his wife, has run a successful children's entertainment company, Bumpers, providing bouncy castles and the like from their New Forest base. In recent months he has also taken up coaching youngsters, mainly to ensure his seven-year-old son, Jordan, is taught properly.

"Coaching in this country at the age when it matters, seven, eight, nine, 10-years-old, leaves a lot to be desired," he says. "Some people say 'Just let them play' but they end up chasing the ball. All I'm doing is taking a group of kids, showing them you need to control a ball, pass, move. In two years' time they'll see a difference."

In a few years' time, the world's footballing public were told more than a few years ago, you will also see a difference in African football. The kind of difference that sees a World Cup win. So what of Nigeria's chances in Japan?

"With players like Jay-Jay Okocha, skilful, talented, they've got potential to do very well," says Chiedozie, who won his first Nigeria cap against Tunisia in a qualifier for the 1982 World Cup. The practice sessions alone for that game were watched by 30,000 fans, while the crowd who witnessed the 3-0 win numbered 100,000 in Lagos.

"But what can happen in the Nigeria squad is disagreements, over money, endorsements, who gets what from a boot deal, how much the Football Association take. If they get problems like that, they'll finish last. I know because when I played for the team the downfall was discipline." The message, then, is keep it simple. "It's the toughest group in the tournament. Argentina are favourites, Sweden are no pushover. England have one of the best strikers around in Owen."

And a prediction for Nigeria and England? "I hope one of them goes through. Because if they do, that could give them confidence to go a lot further."

And confidence, as we have seen, starts with a proper grasp of the basics.

ARGENTINA: OSVALDO ARDILES

'They are going to be there. They're the second best, after France'

Ossie Ardiles arrived at Tottenham shortly after winning the 1978 World Cup and found a national game – and a national diet – crying out for inspiration.

"The food was terrible," said the Argentinian midfielder, who played at White Hart Lane until 1988 before brief spells at Blackburn, Queen's Park Rangers and Swindon and then managerial posts at Swindon, Newcastle, West Bromwich Albion and back at Spurs. "The pre-match meals were heavy, heavy. Steak and chips, bread and butter. And that was on top of a full English breakfast in the morning."

The fare on the pitch, compared to what he and compatriot Ricky Villa had been used to at home, was equally hard to swallow.

"I came into a [Tottenham] team that was not the best," he said. "We had some talented players, like Glenn Hoddle, who was almost South American, but the style in general was very direct. Like all the other English clubs at the time, except Liverpool. It bypassed the midfield. English players were fit, never say die, they ran more than us definitely, but there was still a long-ball mentality. I don't think it was unique in Europe, but even within Europe you could differentiate these things.

"In 1978 England was very, very isolated. Italy and Spain were very open to influence from the outside, especially South America and Brazil. Other countries were more sceptical. England was the head of the sceptics. They said outside players wouldn't cope."

Ardiles and Villa did more than cope – although Villa left in 1982 – and in doing so, they precipitated one of the most significant influxes of overseas players the game has seen. The best of the foreign players who arrived in their wake – most significantly in the Nineties with the likes of Jürgen Klinsmann, Eric Cantona and Gianfranco Zola – helped transform the way the game was played, on and off the pitch.

"Certainly those players have had a major influence," said Ardiles. "They've brought in new diets, tactics, training, the whole lot. The bigger you are the more influence you have. If Klinsmann runs better, eats better, trains harder, doesn't drink and plays better for it, you copy him. You have to be stupid not to follow the best examples."

A wider change, says Ardiles, has taken a "long, long time" in coming but he feels the Premiership has benefited and although the Manchester Uniteds, Liverpools and Arsenals of today still retain a certain English quality, they are fundamentally much more similar – right down to the cosmopolitan personnel – to the Real Madrids, Barcelonas and Bayern Munichs.

That, in turn, has only helped broaden the education of the English national side, who face Argentina in Sapporo on 7 June in what could be a make-or-break match for Sven Goran Eriksson's charges.

"I don't think it's going to be a classic," says Ardiles, "not as big as the World Cup meetings in 1998 or in 1986. But England are a young, energetic and confident side. Tactically, the left side of the team still needs some work. They have been trying different people and different styles, but midfield overall is strong.

"I think Beckham is a good player and Owen is some attacker, but the one player I particularly like is Steven Gerrard. He is very good in every way. Skilful, good at passing, intelligent, strong."

Ardiles was talking before the injury that spoilt Gerrard's summer but even then he was not overly optimistic for England. "Argentina are going to be there," he said of the tournament's likely winners. "They're the second best, after France." Unpalatable to supporters here, perhaps, but then Ardiles has been digesting English football for 24 years.

SWEDEN: HANS JEPPSON

'I think maybe we will see a draw'

Swedish Internationals can now be found from Aston Villa to Wimbledon, from Coventry to Celtic, from Arsenal to Everton to Southampton to Soho Square. But when the Charlton manager, Jimmy Seed, signed the striker Hans Jeppson on 6 January 1951, he masterminded a coup unrivalled in the contemporary game and set in motion one of English football's most remarkable cameo stints ever.

Only one Swede had played league football in England before, Dan Ekner, a centre-forward who made a handful of appearances for Portsmouth as they retained their First Division title in 1949-50.

Jeppson, the captain of a Swedish team who had shocked Italy 3-2 in their opening game at the 1950 Brazil World Cup, made a much bigger splash. When he arrived at The Valley – on amateur terms because he was only in town to further his business studies – Charlton were in the mire at the wrong end of the First Division. (Jeppson knew who they were because a family friend – Bjorn Borg's father – had starting supporting them during a 1938 tour to Sweden). When he departed less than 12 weeks later, they were safe.

A few months later Jeppson turned professional, and on the back of his exploits in London secured a lucrative move to Italy with Atalanta. He received a signing-on fee of £18,000, which was Beckhamesque money in the Fifties. Later he moved to Napoli for a world record 107 million lira (£70,000).

Charlton's transformation during Jeppson's sojourn was extraordinary. He played only 11 league games but scored nine league goals, including a hat-trick at Highbury against Arsenal. He remains one of an élite band to have achieved that feat. He still has the match ball, signed by the Arsenal manager, Tom Whittaker, at his summer house outside Gothenburg.

He also scored vital winning goals against Sheffield Wednesday (an 89th-minute strike on his debut), Liverpool and Chelsea. He scored two against Wolves in a 3-2 win and four in a 5-1 friendly win over West Ham. When he returned to Sweden end at the end of March 1951, Charlton's chairman, Stanley Gliksten, had become so enamoured with the "Handsome Swede" that he tried to charter a helicopter to whisk him away from his final game. He failed, but instead paid 30 guineas to transport him in a launch along the Thames to Tilbury docks, where he boarded the Swedish ship, Suecia, that would take him home.

"I worked well with my team-mates, people like Sam Bartram [the legendary goalkeeper] and Benny Fenton [the club captain]," Jeppson said, speaking from his home in Rome as he celebrated his 77th birthday 10 days ago. "I had some proposals that were seen as fantastic. Like keep the ball on the ground. It was a special time in my career."

It was against England that Jeppson made his international debut in summer 1949 in Stockholm. The home side beat the visitors 3-1, their first win against England. Jeppson was on the scoresheet.

It was in Rome that Jeppson came to know his compatriot Sven Goran Eriksson because he lives a short distance from the Lazio training ground the England coach came to know so well.

"He's so calm, so clever," said Jeppson of Eriksson. "But his main quality is keeping a balanced atmosphere in the team, whatever team. He's been a great success in every country."

Jeppson's appraisal of England v Sweden is no surprise, given his split loyalties. "I think," he says , "we will maybe see a draw."

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