The obligatory World Cup rant!

And so once again we look back on an England World Cup campaign bitterly disappointed. And although we may feel the injustice of Frank Lampard’s phantom goal (an event of which I do not share the same view as BBC commentator Guy Mowbray, who described it as purely “academic”), it cannot disguise how from start to finish England were far, far short of what was needed from them in South Africa. From day one’s jittery performance against the United States, England never really got out of first gear and were taken apart by a distinctly average German side, albeit in a clinical manner befitting of the nation who always seem to get the best out of their eleven players – something which England consistently fail to do. One can only fear what a rampant Argentina might have done had Lampard’s apparent equaliser been given – Lionel Messi would have been licking his lips watching some of the defending on display in Bloemfontein yesterday. Such a situation once again begs the question of the England team – how can a bunch of such talented individuals chronically underperform so spectacularly on the world stage?

The answer I believe lies in the question – England are exactly that – a bunch of admittedly talented individuals who simply do not fit together in a team once they cross that white touchline. We can’t simply castigate players such as Rooney, Lampard, Gerrard and Terry as overrated, as we have clearly seen hard evidence of all of these players performing at the highest level for their respective clubs in the Champions League. It is merely the fact that when they pull on their three-lions adorned shirts they become not a team but a loose collection of individual talent who although showing glimpses of what talents they do possess, are made to look amateurish by sides who quite simply work more effectively together as a unit. Take Bob Bradley’s USA team as an example – they only have a smattering of above average players in Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan, but through a strong work ethic and playing to their strengths they were able to top the group over our own team of some of world football’s biggest names. Such a lack of unity and cohesion in our own team was made glaringly apparent by a German side that are quite simply the antithesis of Fabio Capello’s England in the respect that they get everything out of their team, despite having what many would regard as comparably a paucity of top class players. Once life was made easy for them by the cast number of English mistakes, they were able to simply pass it though and use the space available to them as a unit – a feat achieved only once in the tournament for England, in Heskey and Gerrard’s one-two in Rustenburg.

So how do England attempt to find the ability to make the team as a whole as good as the sum of it’s parts, in time for the next major tournament, 2012’s European Championships in Poland and Ukraine? I believe the answer lies in a fresh start in both the personnel on and off the field. Fabio Capello’s world cup began in troubled circumstances after the Capello Index affair and speculation linking the Italian with a return to his home country with Inter Milan and although his bullishness and culture of fear is to be partially admired in the light of what came before in the England camp under previous managers, it seemingly affected brittle confidence and can only have contributed to the basic uncharacteristic errors made by usually top class players. His substitutions at times left a lot to be desired (Heskey for Defoe when chasing the game?) and his pig headedness in failing to try the Gerrard in the hole/Joe Cole on the left in either the lead up to or in the group stages themselves could have seen a different England emerge from the tunnel than the distinctly undercooked one we were treated to for the whole tournament. For me there is only one option left – for Capello to come to an agreement with the F.A.and do the decent thing – accept that he has tried and failed to bring to an end the 44 ‘years of hurt’ and instead to offer the most consistently successful English manager of the last ten years one last shot at the big time. Having taken a similarly disillusioned Tottenham side from Premiership also-rans to Champions League place winners, Harry Redknapp has proved he is the right man for the job.  If we learn anything from another abysmal world cup it should be this.

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