As the dust settles on a devastatingly poor world cup campaign, I can’t help but feel that the tournament is better off without us. It’s never fun watching England but this time round it was torture.
In previous tournaments my abiding feeling when we got knocked out has always been one of regret, this time it was relief. We were quick to condemn Sven for being unable to take us past the quarter finals of a major tournament with the quality of players at his disposal but perhaps being in the top 8 nations is as good as we’ve ever deserved. A sprinkling of luck (or mental strength as others would term it) and we might even have squeezed into a semi final. Perhaps Sven did as well as he could, it's just that our expectations were unrealistic.
There was never any danger of that happening this year but led by false optimism after a surprisingly easy qualifying campaign and a relatively easy group stage on paper, off we went hugely expectant. I read many articles prior to the world cup with pundits expecting us to reach the last 4 but then fall at the final hurdle. If only.
Picking apart where it all went wrong is futile now. There are few positives to take at all. Big players simply didn’t perform and never once looked like producing a performance that justified their tag of ‘world class’. This is nothing new. Lampard, so assured and influential in Chelsea’s midfield, has never produced in a major tournament and has surely been given enough chances. I’m at a loss to explain why the big players couldn’t reproduce their form. They play regularly in the Champions League against other genuine world class players, often coming out with much credit, but are they big game players? Certainly for all Rooney’s domestic hype, he hasn’t produced in the bigger games, nor has Lampard who was anonymous when Chelsea were beaten by Inter Milan earlier this season.
The players must take responsibility for their failings but as Greece proved at Euro 2004, success is a team effort and England could do worse than learning how to play as a team. The way in which they conceded goals against Germany was beyond alarming. A legitimate goal was disallowed, an injustice done but England still had 45 minutes to get back into the match and had proved albeit briefly that they could give the German defence problems. What possessed the players to abandon their stations and maraud down the pitch to even things up leaving gaping holes at the back will perhaps never be explained. I just hope we learn from the experience. Portugal’s tactics were not pretty last night but they showed how to defend as a team. Algeria, too, showed courage and determination as a team to keep England out in the group stages. England players clearly believe in their own hype.
There were clearly problems behind the scenes (with some unsubstantiated rumours about Gerrard getting his wife’s sister pregnant causing divisions in the camp) but ultimately Capello failed miserably in his attempt to communicate clear instructions to the team. He may have lost the dressing room and his tactics and substitutions were so bizarre, we may have seen the last of him.
It is time to rebuild and give younger players a chance, as the Germans have done. Root and branch changes are promised after every disappointing campaign but this time there’s really no place to hide. The golden generation is over, if it ever in fact existed.
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