Football Update: Despite EPL’s Success, England fail in the World Cup- Being egocentric super-stars won’t help the Team
England is one of the most talked about teams in the World of Football, as the English FA enjoys a lot of influence in the matters related to football. In addition, the English Premier League, the club competition, is the most popular league in the world.
All the big players from the big leagues want to join the English clubs, which provide huge sums of salaries to the players. Also, recently some of the biggest businessmen tycoons have started investing in the EPL, as the Chelsea was bought by Roman Abramovich of Russia, and Manchester City became the richest club in the World after a take-over by the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mansur bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have enjoyed considerable success in Europe, especially in the last decade.
Despite all this success of the EPL, the English team has failed again and again to make their mark in the International competitions. Their situation is so abysmal, that the year Manchester United won the Champions League, the English failed to qualify for the Euro Cup. This was a big blow to the integrity of the English side, which had some world-class players, like Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. After such a humiliating span, there were a lot of changes made in the English squad. To set things straight, Fabio Capello was hired as the team’s manager. Capello had a good reputation preceding him, as he enjoyed considerable success in Italian Serie A.
Capello adopted very strict methods to manage the team, as he observed the discipline issues with the players. He switched the English captaincy from player to player, as John Terry was stripped off from the captain’s armband. Ultimately, Rio Ferdinand was the chosen one, and under his captaincy, England enjoyed a successful run towards the World Cup in South Africa. Previously, the goals were not coming for the English side; however, in their qualification campaign they scored 34 goals in only 10 matches. In addition, they lost only one match throughout the Qualifying round.
However, the English captain got injured before the start of the World Cup, which was a major blow to their side’s defence. Rio Ferdinand, truly, was the most in-form defender in the English team, as he had won a series of trophies with his club, Manchester United. However, after an injury to Ferdinand, the captain’s armband was passed on to Steven Gerrard, as John Terry was again overlooked by Capello. Maybe, this damaged the morale of Terry, because he showed a real lack of composure and concentration in his penalty area. He was the one who made a lot of errors in the defence, which ultimately led to the English elimination against the Germans. The absence of Ferdinand, due to injury, just accelerated the collapse of the English side.
Another abysmal performer for the English was Wayne Rooney. The striker had a remarkable season with his club, Manchester United, but an injury towards the end of the season really put his position in doubts. He was supposed to be an anchorman in the English attack, but he failed miserably and remained goal-less in the tournament. Rooney showed signs of fatigue and exhaustion, maybe because of his lack of fitness after coming back from injury.
The only good performance, for the English, came from the new captain, Steven Gerrard. He was not exceptional but he played better than the rest of the squad. Even he failed to reproduce something of the sort that he used to do for his club, Liverpool. On the contrary, Frank Lampard had a bad spell in the tournament, except for the last match against Germany.
The English FA can blame it all on the referees and FIFA, for the controversial decision that went against them in the match with Germany. However, only the English key players are to blame, as they let their nation down, once again. Maybe, there are still some discipline problems in the team, which raised their heads once the team regained their pride.
It is always difficult for a manager to control a team full of egocentric super-stars. Now, Capello’s future is in danger, but the players would have to take the responsibility, otherwise no manager would be able to change things for the English.
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