On Saturday England play Israel as part of the qualifying for the European championship in 2008. (I’ll pardon anyone who yawns at this point, since the result of the match must be a no-brainer, right?) What is there to write about such a contest: A Mediterranean Minnow trying to take on a Northern Pike? Eleven Premiership players against three? And those three not starters in the EPL?

But long before the kick-off at Wembley this weekend, another contest is being fought, and it is becoming seriously acrimonious by the hour. A contest between the managers of club and country, Rafael Benitez and Steve McClaren, in which the principal loser may be neither Liverpool nor England, but a player, midfielder Steven Gerrard.

Here’s how it started. On August 15, Gerrard played in the first leg of a Champion’s League match against Toulouse. Liverpool won 1-0, but the midfielder sustained an hairline fracture of the big toe of his right foot. A broken bone takes about six weeks to heal, but for Liverpool there was this upcoming match the following weekend: Liverpool against Chelsea. Gerrard is the engine of both Liverpool and England, but here he is in one of the biggest Premiership games of the year, and he can’t play. Or can he…?

Rafael Benitez decides that Stevie is too important to leave out of the Premiership match, and so lets him (encourages him to?) have a painkiller injection to allow him to play. Says Benitez: : “It’s not serious but we have to be careful. It’s not a big risk but we can push him and then he needs rest.” So with Gerrard playing, and after a controversial penalty-kick, for which the referee was given a week off, and after which Keith Hackett, the man in charge of referees, apologized to Liverpool, the match ends 1-1.

But the following week is a friendly match against Germany, and Benitez says that Gerrard will not play, because (and this is priceless!): “I now have to talk to [England coach] Steve McClaren, but he has to understand playing Steven for England will be a big risk for his future.” (Any hypocrisy there?) The reason is that in the meantime Benitez has learned that Gerrard took four days to recover from the effects of the first jab. He couldn’t train; no doubt the pain returned, and so Gerrard did not play.

Now we are running up to the crucial game against Israel, Gerrard desperately wants to play to inspire his mates into getting back into contention in the qualification for the European Chamionship, and someone has to make a decision about the broken toe. Benitez has decided that although “..it’s not serious..” yet playing for England can be “..a big risk for his future..”, Gerrard himself wants to play, and McClaren says: “He played with an injection against Chelsea two weeks ago. To get him on the pitch we will take whatever action it needs.” Oh, boy!

Gerrard was passed fit by McClaren after coming through a Friday training session unscathed. “He [Gerrard] has trained twice without an injection and if he plays tomorrow like he played this morning in training then everyone will be delighted,” said McClaren. “That’s the kind of performance that we need and it’s a big boost for everybody, most of all Stevie G because he desperately wants to play in this game. He came through it with no problems whatsoever.” But, there’s that previous statement: “To get him on the pitch we will take whatever action it needs.”

Neither McClaren nor Gerrard is a doctor, and neither (apparently) is aware that pain serves a purpose: to warn you that there is something wrong. To inject a painkiller defeats the body’s purpose, and risks aggravating the original injury. In Gerrard’s case, will the hairline fracture lengthen? Will the bone become displaced at another knock? Will the recovery time increase? For one game of David against Goliath, is England going to risk a player’s health?

In my book, Steven Gerrard should watch and cheer.

But in an interview with the newspaper The Sun, MacClaren summed up the situation thus: “He wants to play, I want him to play, the team does, the fans do. The country does. It’s a big game and we need big players. Stevie is one of them. Sometimes what the players want has to be taken into all the advice given from medical people and from managers. We will go a lot on Stevie G, on how he is feeling and what he wants. We will liaise with Liverpool and will do nothing that will put the player at risk. Asked if he had the ultimate power to decide whether or not Gerrard plays, McClaren replied: ‘Yes, I think I have.’”

Read between the lines of that statement, and it is clear that the Gerrard is a pawn to be moved as the real player (McClaren) sees fit. And yet sport is an activity in which the players are supposed to be the most important participants….

Today the announcement came that Gerrard will play. Can you imagine the conflict that will occur if Gerrard’s injury is aggravated by playing?