Hodgson reluctantly faces music after seismic Iceland loss

CHANTILLY, France (AP) – The day after the night before, the confusion and pain from the seismic defeat that cost Roy Hodgson his job as manager of England was still written large on his craggy face.

But, to his credit, Hodgson didn’t hide away.

Feeling “very fragile,” Hodgson reluctantly appeared for one last England news conference on Tuesday, against his better instincts.

All that Hodgson wanted to say about his team’s 2-1 loss to Iceland the previous night in the European Championship round-of-16 had been said, he felt, in his resignation statement immediately after the defeat that sent England out of a major tournament early, yet again.

But he also didn’t want anyone to think that he was frightened to face the music. So he roused himself for the TV cameras and assembled journalists at the chateau north of Paris where England, briefly, set up base.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing here,” Hodgson said. “But I was told that it was important for everybody that I appear and I guess that is partly because people are still smarting from our poor performance.”

“I suppose someone has to stand and take the slings and arrows,” he added.

While critics agreed that England played appallingly, they disagreed on just how badly the defeat ranked in England’s sorry history of underperforming at major tournaments. For some, it was the worst loss ever. For others, just the worst in a generation.

“I’m very fragile today. It wasn’t a good night, for anyone,” Hodgson said.

“I was not forced to come here. I did so because I have never shirked a press conference, because I have never run away from anybody,” he said. “So much is going to be written about our failure to get to the quarterfinals that nothing I can say would do anything other than fuel the flames, possibly.”

He insisted, however, that his players showed “good signs of good football” in three group stage games before they melted – Hodgson called it a “one-off” – against Iceland’s team drawn from a tiny pool of professional players among the island’s 330,000 people.

“One particularly bad game has caused a lot of damage,” Hodgson said, adding that the loss could weigh on England’s young team going forward.

“They’ve got a major bridge to repair,” he said.

The England Football Association’s CEO, Martin Glenn, said the post-failure inquest, the latest of many, must fathom out why the nation that invented the laws of football repeatedly stalls early, with the World Cup in 1966 its only major tournament win.

“It’s a national imperative that we become more resilient,” he said. “England seem brittle and we need to understand why.”

Glenn, too, clutched at positives, saying England became “a much stronger team” during Hodgson’s four years in charge.

“Iceland is not your epitaph,” he told Hodgson.

And he rejected the idea that England’s players didn’t care enough to win. Glenn said he visited the England dressing room after the defeat and “the scene was devastation and personal grief.”

“This hurts,” he said. “This is not about a lack of passion.”