England players are terrified and live in fear of failure

There have been times when I reflected on my international career and just thought: ‘Well, that was a massive waste of time.’



Sorry for sounding sour, but my best mate, David Beckham, got butchered after the World Cup in 1998, then my brother, Phil, after Euro 2000.

The whole lot of us got it in the neck at other times. Sometimes we deserved it, but playing for England was one long rollercoaster: some ups and downs, but also quite a few moments when you’re not really sure if you’re enjoying the ride.

Dejected: Gary Neville (centre) didn't also enjoy international duty with England

It should be fantastic, the best moments of your life. But there is no doubt that too many players spend too much time fearing the consequences of failure when they pull on an England shirt.

I was really struck by one meeting Steve McClaren organised with Bill Beswick, the sports psychologist, and the whole squad. I saw young players terrified of what was in front of them. A few were saying they weren’t enjoying England at all.

The best managers — Terry Venables, Sven Goran Eriksson in his early years, Fabio Capello in patches — have banished those fears for periods, but it doesn’t take much to go wrong before the dread comes flooding back. A healthy edge of nerves at club level would become fear at national level, a fear that if we lost, the world was going to end. Too many players were frightened of what would be said or written about them, of making a mistake.

I WAS DELIGHTED TO SEE C**P WEMBLEY SMASHED TO PIECES

I loved playing under Venables, although it wasn’t all plain sailing. Being a United player at that time was to be a target for some terrible stick. People either loved us or hated us. Fewer than 30,000 fans watched us play Bulgaria one night at the old Wembley, so you could hear every shout. ‘Munich b******!’ ‘Red b******!’



There would be groups of West Ham and Chelsea supporters, lads who had come not to cheer England but to get p****d and hammer a few United players on a Wednesday night. I’d be running up and down the touchline, playing my guts out for my country, then I’d go to pick up the ball for a throw-in and hear a shout of ‘F*** off, Neville, you’re s***! I was delighted when that tired old ground, with its c**p facilities and its pockets of bitter fans, got smashed into little pieces. I never mourned the Twin Towers, not for a minute.

End of an era: Neville wasn't disappointed to see the old Wembley stadium torn down

Still, I didn’t let the minority of idiots spoil the experience of playing for England or for Terry. I loved it and at Euro 96 we had a squad, and manager, capable of winning a major title. Perhaps we did in 2004, too, but were we ever really a Golden Generation?

There’s no doubt that the FA mishandled managerial appointments, letting Venables go too easily and appointing Glenn Hoddle and Steve McClaren before they were ready. But would any manager have turned us into England’s first winners since ’66?

Hoddle took over from Venables and it’s been said before: if only he had possessed the man-management skills to go with his undoubted football intelligence. He was a very good coach who wanted England to play the right way.

He also believed in alternative methods, including Eileen Drewery, the faith healer, who’d visited the camp a few times before the World Cup. As a bit of a sceptic, I’d never gone to see her.

When the 1998 World Cup started, some of the players started taking injections from Glenn’s favourite medic, a Frenchman called Dr Rougier. It was different from anything we’d done at United, but all above board, I’m sure.

After some of the lads said they’d felt a real burst of energy, I decided to seize any help on offer. So many of the players decided to go for it before that Argentina match that there was a queue to see the doctor. Before the game, Glenn did his usual pre-match routine of moving around the players, shaking their hands and touching them just over the heart.

We’ll never know if the methods had any positive effect. One of the masseurs told me Glenn had asked the staff to walk around the pitch anti-clockwise during the game against Argentina to create positive energy. Sadly, it didn’t do us much good.

KEEGAN FELL ASLEEP IN THE FRONT ROW OF A TEAM TALK

Under Kevin Keegan’s management, there was a chant, ‘If the Nevilles can play for England, so can I’. At the worst moments during his reign, I’d have happily swapped places with the clowns on the terraces.

Things got so bad during Kevin’s reign that it was a relief to be left on the sidelines or injured. It wasn’t all Kevin’s fault. His time in the job coincided with my most miserable period as a player. But the bottom line is that the England job brutally exposes any manager’s failings. And Kevin, as he’d admit, fell short of the level required.

As well as the problems with the team, I was never thrilled about the gambling culture off the pitch. The amount of time spent on horse racing or cards was ridiculous. It was all very old school, completely different to what I’d become used to in terms of discipline, focus and preparation at United.



Dozing off: Former England boss Kevin Keegan (left) fell asleep during Les Reed's (right) team talk

We’d have a 10-minute coach journey down to training and players would get the cards out. We’d lose a match and the gambling school would start up again.

Gambling is a cancer in a changing room. I remember the only time I got suckered into a heavy card game. On a pre-season tour with United in Malaysia I ended up playing for a few hundred quid a hand. This was big by my standards and it got right into my head. I went to bed thinking about the Jack of Hearts, the King of Spades.

As a man-manager, Kevin was great getting round the table and talking to players. But we didn’t learn. There were seven, eight coaches, all decent people, like Peter Beardsley and Les Reed, but there was no tactical nous being passed down.

That was summed up one day when Les gave one of his lectures about our next opponents — and Kevin fell asleep. He was sitting on the front row and we could see his shoulders sagging, his head nodding forward. He woke up with a start and all the lads burst out laughing.

At Euro 2000, we could have played for 30 years and we’d never have succeeded. We weren’t good enough, not by a million miles. My brother would take terrible stick for the way we went out, with him giving away a penalty against Romania, but he did us a favour by sparing us any more punishment.

Blessing in disguise: Phil Neville gives away a penalty that would see England crash out of Euro 2000

I told him repeatedly that he had nothing to feel bad about. ‘We were s***, Phil. We were going home soon enough anyway.’



Eriksson took over from Kevin and made instant improvements. I liked Sven from the start. I would have reservations by the end, but the first few years were as enjoyable as any in an England shirt.

I thought I might even be captain when David Beckham missed a friendly against Paraguay in April 2002. Sven sat me down at the front of the coach on the way to the ground. ‘Gary, I’m going to make Michael Owen captain tonight.’ Typical Sven, he tried to be diplomatic. He practically told me that I was a more natural captain than Michael. He was almost apologising to me.

So why didn’t he give me the job? Nothing personal against Michael, but there were other players, like Rio Ferdinand, Gerrard, Frank Lampard and me, who were more obvious contenders. But Michael was the bigger name, and Sven could be a little weak like that.

Captain: Michael Owen was given the nod

And by the World Cup in 2006, we were still way too reliant on an automatic first XI. The big names were guaranteed to play rather than the best team. The experiment during qualifying, when Becks was used in the ‘quarterback’ role in central midfield against Wales and Northern Ireland, proved the point. The team were put out of shape to accommodate the big players.



It seemed to me like a fudge to get around the issue of how to keep Becks, Gerrard and Lampard in the same side. After Wayne Rooney’s sending-off against Portugal and our missed penalties, it was over. My last shot at the World Cup. I stood on that pitch in Gelsenkirchen feeling desolate. That’s it, another chance gone. It’s never going to happen now. Same old story. Why don’t we ever get it right?

IT WAS WRONG OF McCLAREN TO AXE BECKHAM

I felt sorry for McClaren during his reign as manager. I hoped things would work out for him. I knew he was a good coach and I thought he could thrive in international football. I scored my only goal in an England shirt under him, in my last competitive game. Shame it was in the wrong net.



It was that c**p night in Croatia in October 2006 when the wheels came off the Euro 2008 qualifying wagon. It was a bad trip. The coaches sprang 3-5-2 on us a couple of days before what was a massive fixture. I didn’t know if I was capable of delivering what the team needed.

And it was clear a few of the other players were just as unsure as me. We deserved to lose, and I saw more mistakes in selection, watching from home when Croatia came to Wembley for the return.

It would also turn out to be a mistake dropping Becks, Sol Campbell and David James from his first squad. We could all see what he was trying to do. He was trying to start a new regime. But to drop Becks altogether didn’t make sense. He’s not going to be a cancer in the dressing room. He just wanted to play.

I would have one call-up under Capello, in June 2009, for the trip to Kazakhstan. Training was sharp and focused. Capello didn’t tolerate lateness or slackness in any way. A couple of players were late for a stretch and he pulled them up. Someone had a mobile at lunch and he snapped.

There was a real focus in training. I was impressed with everything he did, which made it even more bizarre when he became so erratic in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

On your bike! Steve McClaren dropped David Beckham (kneeling) from the England squad

Tactically, he made the biggest mistake of all. I’ve been advocating 4-3-3 with England for years and I couldn’t understand why Capello didn’t turn to it. He went with the traditional two banks of four, and it looked predictable and out of date. I’m not saying we’d have won the tournament with better tactics, but we’d have got closer.

The England situation is changing and improving but we just haven’t produced enough players of the right technical and tactical quality. That’s easily proved by the very few times we have held our own against top opponents. Holland in 1996 is pretty much the stand-out match, which tells its own story. I don’t go along with the idea that Sven should forever be remembered for blowing a ‘Golden Generation’.

Three quarter-finals is a respectable record, and I’m not convinced we ever had the depth to win a major tournament. Because we win trophies galore for our clubs, people seem convinced that we should be winning with England. But they overlook how much our clubs have benefited from the foreign stars sprinkled through the Premier League. Trevor Brooking is banging his head against a brick wall at the Football Association and has struggled to drag the game forward. Everything at the FA seems to take a lifetime.

Despair: England's poor record at major tournaments continued last year at the World Cup in South Africa

I regard myself as patriotic but, truth be told, playing for England was a bonus. Winning for my club was always the most important thing, and given a straight choice of a European Cup with United or a European Championship with England, it’s United every time.

None of this ever stopped me giving my all for my country, or being gutted every time we went out of a tournament. But I almost feel a bit sorry for the England players coming through now because they are caught between these massive expectations and the reality of being good, sometimes very good, but probably not of tournament-winning quality.

We are heading in the right direction. The Premier League years have seen a rise in technique and skills and tactical intelligence. But it’s not a transformation that can happen overnight. It will take time. We have our football culture in this country based on the traditional power player and I don’t see us competing seriously for a major tournament for at least 10 years.

I’m afraid we still have a lot of catching up to do.

THE DAY I TAPPED UP GERRARD

Steven Gerrard is undoubtedly a world class player and I wish he'd played for United. I went on a tapping-up mission at Euro 2004 when I knew Chelsea were trying to take advantage of Liverpool

being in turmoil.



'Come play for United,’ I said one day to Steven when we were in the hotel. 'The fans will take to you in no time.' He just laughed, and said: 'I’ll do it if you go to Anfield.'

Tapping up: Gary Neville tried to convince Steven Gerrard (right) to join him at Manchester United