England, Perennial Underachievers or Just Not Good Enough?

And so another World Cup has passed England by and the rest of us are left to trawl through the rubble of England's excursion to South Africa and indeed Capello's reign in charge of the three lions. England qualified comfortably, so what? They topped a poor group where the only threat came from an inconsistent and in some cases ageing Croatian side. England showed good form in their qualification campaign, nine victories out of ten and once again, some of the players but more so some of the poorer journalists within the English media started to fancy their chances. I don't know how mant headlines that startedwith TERRY: "WE CAN WIN WORLD CUP". Even during the tournament, when John Terry gave his cringeworthy press conference, he came out and said, I'm here to win this tournament" Ambition is fair enough, but downright naivety is another thing. The reality is, England have no basis for such optimism heading into major tournaments. Let's take their record over the last twenty years. Italia '90 - Semi-Finals, good but let's not forget that on their way to that semi-final they defeated Belgium and Cameroon who can hardly be considered as two of football's superpowers. USA '94 - Didn't qualify. France '98 - Last 16. Korea/Japan - Quarter Finals. Germany '06 - Quarter Finals. South Africa '10 - Last 16. England have no World Cup pedigree, therefore how they can delude themselves into classing themselves as one of the favourites boggles me? Take the German's for example, in the last three World Cup's they have reached two semi-finals and one final. That's World Cup pedigree. England lacked creativity at this World Cup, more fundamental still, they lacked someone to get on the ball and initiate attacks. When I saw Lampard and Gerrard starting in the centre of midfield against USA, I couldn't believe my eyes. You could make an argument for Gerrard but not for Lampard for one simple reason. Frank Lampard has not played as a central midfielder in the last seven years, he plays in a free role off a striker and is very good at that. Both Lampard and Gerrard have no interest in starting attacks, their natural instinct is to finish attacks. Take the Spanish for example, you have Alonso, Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas all wanting to get on the ball and start attacks, Gerrard and Lampard were hiding. Unless England address this problem, they will never compete on the International arena. I suggest Capello recognised this and made a last ditch effort to try and get Paul Scholes to travel with the squad. Scholes declined but I feel Michael Carrick could have dug England out of a hole. As a poor a season as he has, Carrick could have been the man to get on the ball in midfield giving either Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson and John Terry an option. How many times throughout England's games did we Ashley Cole on the ball looking for an option before hoofing long in the end, he was looking for an option and neither Frank Lampard nor an unfit Gareth Barry could provide it. I don't know where England go from here... They have an upcoming fixture against Hungary and if they under perform the pressure on the manager will be immense, at the moment there is no signs to suggest that they are going to pull a performance out of the bag, if they aren't at it in the first twenty minutes, the fans will be on their back and the pressure will mount. How long Capello can stick it out? Only time will tell...