England Football: Overrated or just not good enough? Part 2
On paper, England has a team as good as anyone in the world. And that is the problem in my opinion. England is nowhere as good as teams such as Spain, Germany, Brazil and Argentina. The English are much to blame for all this. Let’s
have a look at a small example from the English Premier League. If Scott Parker is having a good run of form, suddenly he’s in all the papers and everyone is talking about how good a player he is. But we rarely see Mikel Arteta mentioned in the papers unless
he has scored a winner. But now that Arteta is eligible to play for England we start seeing him in the English papers. All of a sudden people are talking about how good a player he is.
It’s only natural for your country’s media to talk about you when you’re playing well. But the British media in particular exaggerates things a little too much. Maybe it’s down to the fact that the Premier League is the most watched
league in the world and the players get too much attention. Whatever the reason, all the media talk certainly affects the performances of the players. Look at Theo Walcott; the boy has great pace and an eye for goal. There is no denying that he’s a very talented
player, but we have only seen glimpses of his best until now. Ever since Arsenal signed him, the media has been talking about him as the next Wayne Rooney. Such comparisons put too much pressure on young players. Plus he was the only English player in the
Arsenal first team for some time, so naturally he got added attention due to that. If the media had left him alone, it’s safe to assume that we’d be seeing a different Walcott right now. At a young age, players are meant to prove they are good enough and they
should not be having the burden of a nation’s expectations on their shoulders.
We see Frank Lampard scoring for Chelsea for fun, yet he fails to replicate that form for the national team. In the 2002 world cup he had the highest number of shot attempts in the tournament and not a single goal. That clearly
shows that the expectations are too high. In the recent world cup, England was again rated as one of the tournament favourites. But as usual, the team misfired. Even though the same team swept aside whoever obstructed their way in the world cup qualifiers,
they choked under pressure at the big stage that followed. The presence of a certain Fabio Capello meant expectations were even higher this time - But it was the same old story again, dumped out in the round of 16 again.
A school of thought believes that the England team isn’t good enough and the expectations should be realistic. Having a look at the Spanish and Italian national teams shows us that most of their players have won the Champions League
and of course the world cup whereas in the English lineup, only 3 players have a Champions League medal. This leads to one possible suggestion: England has a lot to prove before they can be considered as serious contenders for the world cup - something that
the English media should realize by now.
The Germans are often underrated. On paper England is stronger in every position. Yet Germany easily swept aside everyone except Spain. Some might argue that their world cup exploits were due to the Jabulani. The particular brand
of football was employed in the German League. Since the national team, more or less, plays in the same country, it became an added advantage. However, with all said and done, the Germans played as a team, something that’s lacking in the English team due to
inflated egos which is a result of the unnecessary media attention that the English players receive. It’s hard to see this trend changing and for this reason, it’s doubtful we’ll see England win anything in the near future.
The write up bears the opinion of the writer and should not be related to Bettor’s editorial stance.
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