World Cup 2010 Review: England

Current Rank: 7
Expectations going in: High
Finished: Round of 16

England qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup with relative ease, and there was much talk before the tournament about how this could be "England's year" to finally bring home a coveted second World Cup title from South Africa. The English, actually, could not have asked for a better group, with the United States, Slovenia, and Algeria rounding out the first couple of games for them. The Sun summed up this feeling quite nicely:
With a core group of elite players, many of whom play in the "best league in the world" on some of the best teams in the world, England fans were dreaming big. It seemed as though things had finally come together, especially after finally getting a world-class manager in Fabio Cappello, who had a pedigree of success in his prior endeavors.

Unfortunately, the English let down their fans, as they so often do, in less-than-noble fashion. Their opening game against the United States was much hyped, both in England and the States. England started out at a fast, brilliant pace, with Gerrard opening the scoring in under 5 minutes, and boy, for those first couple of minutes, England could have beaten anyone.

This level of play, however, was not to last, as goalkeeper Robert Green, in another incident in which an English goalkeeper has blundered on a big occasion, fumbled a weak shot from Clint Dempsey in embarrassing fashion, allowing the Americans to draw level, which is how the game finished.
While a draw against the United States could be seen as a bit surprising, it was still respectable. England next faced an Algeria team that they should have been able to dominate, on paper. In what was essentially an England home match, with English supporters being by far more numerous than Algerian, neither team could really establish themselves or even convince spectators that they were, in fact, watching a game of football, and not just a bunch of men running around in shorts who were trying to break a sweat for the fun of it. The match finished 0-0 and was so poor, so disappointing, that England fans began to boo at the final whistle, prompting Wayne Rooney to criticize them to the camera.

Fortunately, England still controlled their own destiny, as the United States was robbed of a last-minute goal against Slovenia, leaving their match also drawn, 2-2, and ensuring that any team could still qualify or be eliminated going into the final group match.

All England had to do was defeat Slovenia and they would qualify for the next round. On this day, the English showed up, at least for the first hour or so, and managed to get a goal through Jermaine Defoe. The last quarter hour, though, saw Slovenia manage several near-misses that must have been giving players, supporters, and management all kinds of fits and chewed-down nails.

England managed to hold on for the 1-0 win, although they failed to win the group, finishing second behind the United States. Apparently, the group was not as "easy" as predicted.

This, however, set up a mouth-watering clash with Germany in the round of 16, a team that had shown its scoring abilities in a 4-0 demolition of Australia in those teams' first match.

The Germans had a formidable attacking formation, and this was proven in no uncertain way when they opened up a 2-goal lead over a tired-looking and unmotivated England side. An amateurish mistake allowed German goalkeeper Neuer to simply clear the ball down the field to Miroslav Klose, who ran by England's defense and prodded the ball past a hapless David James. Lukas Podolski capitalized on another flowing German move by arrowing the ball past James some minutes later, making it absolutely do-or-die time for England's World Cup hopes after barely having even played 30 minutes.

Being down 2-0 seemed to finally awaken England, as they upped the tempo and pulled one back through Matthew Upson. Shortly after that, at 2-1 and just before halftime, Frank Lampard hit a shot that appeared to go across the line before being pulled back out again. With the referees in perfect position to judge, they got the call wrong, and the scored stayed 2-1 at halftime.



In the second half, England knew they needed to attack to break down a solid German defense, and this is exactly how Germany punished them, scoring 2 goals in quick succession on the counterattack, to flatter the scoreline a bit, but also send English football into a tailspin of doubt, humiliation, and despair.

And thus begins, after such an ignoble defeat, and on the back of 1 win and 3 goals in 4 matches, the soul-searching for what went wrong and how to improve in the future for English football.

One obvious answer is youth development and the Premier League. The core group of the England side that went to South Africa (Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard, Terry, etc.) are world-class athletes, but most are not getting any younger, and the depth of talent that exists to replace them, should they need to, is frankly inadequate. The younger talent coming up through the ranks in England are just not good enough. Compared to Germany, which invests over 4 times as much in its youth program as England does, the difference in depth and talent is startling.

With over 60% of players in the Premier League coming from outside of England, many English players are not getting quality time playing football at a very high level. There is no single body that oversees youth development in England, again in contrast to Germany. Many clubs in England have enough money that they can simply spend millions on cheaper, foreign imports rather than the inflated price given many times to home-grown players. Germany had this same problem in the mid-90's, lasting through to their disastrous EURO 2000 and EURO 2004 performances. England has had troubles of their own, failing to qualify for EURO 2008 and disappointing at the 2010 and 2006 World Cups.

Further hampering England's chances at winning a major trophy is their attitude. The media doesn't help this, no doubt, but England's players and fans all expect their team to be in among the elite, playing at a level akin to Brazil, Spain, or the Netherlands. This is simply an illusion, and a dangerous one at that. How many legitimately good, quality, world-class teams have England beaten in the past several years? They did recently defeat Croatia in Zagreb, which was very impressive. Aside from that, all that comes to mind is going out to Portugal on penalties in two straight tournaments, almost beating France in EURO 2004, and barely squeaking by a deplorable Argentina side in 2002 thanks to a David Beckham penalty.

If the results haven't really been that great in the past several years, where does England get this attitude from, that they're better than any other team simply because they know they are? It's arrogant, and it costs them games. From expecting to easily win their group at the World Cup (why do the other teams even bother to show up?), to looking down upon nations with players who, gasp!, don't play in England, the English have a mental problem that is inconsistent with reality. It doesn't matter whether you have Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, or John Terry if you cannot play well and win games with them. England lacks depth, flair, style, and humility.

So what can England do to fix their problems? By investing more into their youth academies, restructuring the organization of developing youth in England, reducing the amount of foreign players in the Premier League, and eating a good, healthy dose of humble pie, the English have a great chance at seeing themselves destroy another big team in the knockout rounds of a major tournament, and maybe even more than that, if they follow through with these steps outlined above.