England: Exploding the Myth. Courtesy of football 365
Myth: England have 'world-class' players.
Reality:They have a few good players who only are only very occasionally world-class. The rest are just average at international level. It's self-evident. We almost never play well against any side other than a minnow like Jamaica or Andorra.
Myth: England play 4-4-2 best, it's what they know.
Reality: England players are not flexible enough to play any other system. But 4-4-2 makes them flat and predictable. Sides know how to play us. We have no guile, no creativity, no alternatives. If we don't score early, we soon start kicking 40-yard balls from the half-way line up to someone on the edge of the box who then fights for it, more often than not loses it and we cede possession again.
Myth: Michael Carrick is a creative midfielder capable of defence-splitting passes.
Reality: He's a midfielder, he can pass it; most players can pass it. That's it.
Myth: English football has benefited from the massive influx of overseas talent at top clubs. It's made English players more skilful.
Reality: If that's true, why are they so poor then? You only learn from the best, not from the legions of journeymen and never-be-better-than-average players that are more typical. Show me one current England player who has the skill of Beardsley or Gascoigne or Waddle.
Myth: Despite all the overseas players, good English talent will still come through.
Reality: There is no competition for England places because too few are of a high-enough standard. It's self-evident that we have a shallow pool of talent to choose from, therefore it simply can't be true unless we believe that England's children are just innately worse at football than nations with much smaller populations like Holland. We have almost no strength in depth in any position. We have to play players who can't even get regular league football like Defoe, SWP and Crouch. A few injuries decimates the squad. We can never really know who was discouraged by lack of opportunity at their local club. We can never quantify how great a youth team player could have been if given the chance to grow and develop in the first team.
Myth: We had loads of English players in the 70s and 80s and were still rubbish and didn't win anything.
Reality: In those days we were tactically unsophisticated, and arrogantly thought we could just assert our way of playing to beat sides that were better organised and far more skilful and far fitter. We couldn't; it was a delusion. It wasn't just the players, it was everything else. But remember, the only success in World Cups has come when the league was almost entirely UK-based in 1966 and 1990. Even in 1996 this was still largely the case.
Myth: If you need a strong domestic league with a lot of local players in, how come Brazil are so successful with players who all play abroad?
Reality: Brazil are not actually that good anymore but their success has come from a domestic football culture which produces and encourages talent and which then exports that talent to European clubs. England's problem is not that English players all have to go abroad to get a game, it's that not enough of them are encouraged or able to play in the highest domestic league in the first place.
Myth: Sven's negative tactics and lack of English passion made the Golden Generation fail at the World Cup.
Reality: Sven actually over-achieved with a small palette of good players available to him. Passion in a manager proves nothing and is a useless, blunt tool unless the players are good enough.
Myth: Why can't England players play well for their country? They play at the highest level for their clubs.
Reality: They only sometimes exceptionally play well for their clubs, and those times mask the other times when they're anonymous. No players who took the field against Macedonia had played well or at all recently, except Crouch but even he can't command a regular place for Liverpool. This myth means players are over-rated by fans and media and by themselves.
Myth: We'll still qualify for Euro 2008. This was just a blip.
Reality: It's far from guaranteed. Failing to beat sides like Macedonia that are well-organised, well-motivated, good on the ball and very fit, even if we don't lose, could be our downfall.
Far from being a blip, this could be the start of a prolonged period of failure as we see the consequences of ten years of top clubs buying in overseas talent rather than nurturing their own. Remember, all of the current England squad over 24 years old are products of youth policies set up before the Premiership was choked with non-British players.
Myth: At least we're still better than Scotland.
Reality: Maybe, but could we have beaten France on Saturday, even with Boumsong in defence? Scotland realised a couple of years ago, partly because of financial restraints, that the future was in cultivating local talent not in buying it in. Already, they're seeing the benefit of that as the top clubs now have more Scottish lads on the books than at any time in recent years.
Myth: We don't care about England, we only really care about club football.
Reality: We only say that as a defence mechanism because England can be so depressing. When England play well and win, the nation rejoices. Almost all of us care passionately, more passionately than the players who, after years of being pampered and receiving rewards unrelated to actual achievement, live insulated lives and though they protest otherwise, tend to play for their own personal reputation, rather than play as a unified team
