So that's it—Steve McClaren is finally gone.
And what did it take for the manager to get the sack?
Only for England to fail to qualify for the Euro 2008 finals in Austria.
The truth, though, is that McClaren should never have been appointed in the first place.
When the FA cut ties with Sven-Goran Eriksson, they insisted on finding a full-time replacement before the 2006 World Cup.
That was crazy.
Had the FA waited until the end of the tournament, they could've had their pick of world class-managers—Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink, and Jurgen Klinsmann among them.
Instead, their options were severely limited.
No less significantly, Eriksson's poor performance at the helm—and the £4.5 million he was paid for it—discouraged some factions within the FA from targeting another expensive foreign coach.
The result?
A short list of candidates that included McClaren and Sam Allardyce.
What a choice.
McClaren got the nod in the end because his Middlesbrough team beat Allardyce's Bolton team in the 2004 Carling Cup Final, and reached the 2006 UEFA Cup Final...only to get spanked 4-0 by Sevilla.
What did England fans get in return?
Inept decision-making (like dropping David Beckham, David James, and Sol Campbell before desperately recalling all three) and endless wavering (as in the debate about leaving Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard out of the lineup against Croatia).
Time and again, McClaren has proven to be in over his head at the international level—see the draw at home against Macedonia, the draw at Israel, the defeat in Moscow, and the two losses to to Croatia.
As I see it, England's entire Euro 2008 campaign has been a joke. My only message for McClaren:
See ya Steve—have a nice life.
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