WIMBLEDON legends are thrilled to see Thomas Tuchel go full Crazy Gang in England’s bid for World Cup glory.
The England boss is taking a leaf out of the Dons playbook by telling his Three Lions to use long throws and big goal-kicks to secure their first major trophy since 1966.
2
2
Wimbledon were renowned for their direct and physical style of play both during the 1980s and 1990s.
As well as climbing from non-league to the top tier, they also pulled off one of football’s biggest shocks to beat Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final at Wembley.
Former Dons manager Dave Bassett told Sun Sport: “I think Tuchel’s on the right lines.
“The purists have been living in fantasy land. Even Manchester City use the long ball more. Our old ways are catching on.
“If you can get the ball forward — not aimlessly — and get players running in behind, it unsettles defences.
“People panic more with long throws than they ever do with corners — they become frightened to death.
“Going sideways and backwards doesn’t get you goals.
“We didn’t hang around. The players knew it was one-touch and going into the box. But we did not get the credit because people called it anti-football.”
BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS
Bassett backs Tuchel’s decision to leave Jude Bellingham out of his latest squad — raising the possibility the Real Madrid superstar may not even feature in the USA, Canada and Mexico next summer.
The 81-year-old added: “Tuchel needs to decide what formation he wants and which players best suit his system and share his vision.
“Bellingham is a very good player but if he’s not conducive to the team spirit, then tough luck on Bellingham. One person cannot hold the team to ransom.
“When you go away, Tuchel can’t have moody, selfish people who are not sold on his ideas.
“If players are suspect he won’t take them — even if they may be great players.”
Bobby Gould took the reins after Bassett fell out with Dons owner Sam Hammam — and led them to their most famous win.
His first masterstroke after taking over the Crazy Gang was hiring ex-England coach Don Howe.
And Gould, 79, said: “England’s loss was Wimbledon’s gain with Don.
“We just added a bit more quality rather than ripping it up and starting again. It worked wonders.
“Don was Arsenal through and through and steeped in tradition — but even he got into the mind games.
“In the Wembley dressing room he told every player and staff member to put their watch back ten minutes.
“When the referee came to tell us to get into the tunnel, Don said, ‘no, not yet your watch must be wrong’. So off the ref went, we kept Kenny Dalglish & Co waiting — and that was our first victory of the day.”
Tuchel’s England exploits remind Gould of the Dons’ good old days.
He added: “England have scored a couple of goals under Tuchel right out of the Wimbledon playbook.
“But it showed our much-maligned tactics still work because the opposition don’t know what’s hit them when you get forward quickly and slaughter them with crosses or long throws.
“Mentally and physically you’ve got to be in it together and that gets the opposition thinking, ‘what have we got to do to stop them?’”
Wembley goal hero Lawrie Sanchez went on to use his Wimbledon experience as Northern Ireland manager.
And he masterminded a shock 1-0 victory over Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England at Windsor Park 20 years ago.
Sanchez, 65, said: “The thing the Crazy Gang had is we were greater than the sum of our parts.
“Whether you could get away with half the gamesmanship we got up to with 24 cameras focused on games is a different matter.
“But on the football side, the set-plays, strength of the characters, strong team ethic and belief in what we were doing would still stand us in good stead.
“We were stats-based well before stats came into play and our set-plays were the logical development from that stat-based stuff. We did set-plays in training boringly for hours on Thursdays and Fridays — but it paid off.
“Whether you can get that in an England team in a short space of time is a different matter.
“But they’ve been doing the same thing for the last 59 years and not won anything.”
Full-back Nigel Winterburn helped Wimbledon to a couple of promotions under Bassett but left for Arsenal a year before the cup glory.
He said: “No one liked us because of the way we played but we were often cast-offs with a determination to prove people wrong.
“Boy-oh-boy we intimidated a lot of teams.”
But the likes of John Fashanu and Vinny Jones met their match when they faced the British Army.
Winterburn, 61, said: “Dave Bassett liked to bond everyone in pre-season.
“We’d get a typed itinerary saying which five-star hotel awaited.
“But we would end up in the most basic places — usually with the army.
“Once we had to camp out overnight, attack a mock fort and rescue a so-called prisoner.
“It ended up in chaos with Fash and Vinny fighting soldiers.
“There were weird and wonderful times. It forged a togetherness that made sure we were always there to help team-mates.”