One particular story jumped out at me in yesterday’s news cycle – it was Lionel Messi, normally a considered, responsible and well-spoken young footballer, questioning Fabio Capello’s omission of Theo Walcott from his 23 man squad for the World Cup, something which is naïve as it is incorrect.
The actual quotes attributed to Messi were as follows: “I must say that at the time I thought it was a bad decision to leave Theo Walcott at home. And I think that has been proved right. I can only speak from experience but he was one of the most dangerous players I have ever played against. Along with Cesc Fabregas and Sergio Aguero he would have been the best impact player at the World Cup.” You cannot question Aguero’s and Fabregas’s inclusions in that elite list, but Walcott’s is a troubling one.
To be fair to Messi, he does go onto use his first hand of experience of playing against Walcott in this season’s Champions League knockout phase at the Emirates as reasoning for his opinion stating “Barcelona players are not scared easily but I can tell you that when we played Arsenal last season he truly worried us. When we were playing Arsenal at the Emirates we were so in control of the game at 2-0, with all respect Arsenal were not even in the game. Then Theo came on and changed the game. He pretty much single-handedly salvaged a draw against Barcelona that night. Even in the return leg our manager Pep Guardiola was telling us he was the player to watch out for”
Before adding something approaching a kick in the teeth “If he could do that against Barcelona, think what he could have done against Germany and Algeria. Even if he didn’t start, he would still have been very important for England.”
Now this is all with the benefit of hindsight, and hindsight is a wonderful thing to have at your disposal, but in my opinion, any possible contribution Walcott may have made would have been negligible, for he lacks the positional sense, footballing brain and all-round ability to trouble teams on a consistent enough basis, even off the bench despite the rare occasion that he does sometime deliver the goods.
The strengths and weaknesses of Walcott’s game have been gone over with a fine toothcomb by many a fan, so there’s no need to go in too much depth here, but it’s in the line where Messi argues that alongside Aguero and Fabregas, that Walcott would have been one of the three finest impact subs available at the entire tournament is where I have biggest problem.
It’s a sad indictment of Walcott’s career to date that his most memorable appearances have come in spurts in big games and mainly as passing cameo, but whether he would have been valuable anyway is up for a lot of debate. Perusing through the squads at this year’s World Cup, I’d argue that Diego Milito, Pedro Rodriguez, Jesus Navas, Fabio Quagliarella, Eljero Elia, Joseba Llorente, David Silva and England’s very own Joe Cole offer livelier, more intelligent and overall better attacking options as impact subs from the bench.
Walcott is without a doubt a confidence player, without this most precious of commodities he isn’t much use. As much as his pace is a useful outlet on occasion, as demonstrated in the 4-1 win away in qualifying against Croatia, when utilised properly with a ball behind and into space, with opponents camping men behind the ball, much like Algeria did and to a lesser extent Slovenia did in the group stages, Walcott would have made little or no impact.
He was given ample opportunities by Fabio Capello and more often than not failed to take them when given the chance by a manager that felt owed him another chance. It’s true, Walcott has suffered with injury a lot this season and that has interrupted his rhythm somewhat, but whether he would have made much of a difference to England’s stuttering World Cup campaign is questionable and Messi’s opinion that Walcott would have is quite frankly laughable at worst and ill-informed at best based off his performances for both club and country over the course of the last season.
What does everyone else think? Would Walcott have made much of a difference to the World Cup campaign as Messi alludes to?
Click on image below to see the ITALIAN babes at the World Cup