England fans like to see the team fail

By Marvin Williams.

For four weeks every four years St George flags across the country leave the attic to be hung from windows and attached to cars. The dust they’ve accumulated gets blown into the air and the English public is transformed. Although it’s not yet scientifically proven it provides the only feasible explanation for why we completely lose all sense of reality during the world cup.  John Barnes thinks he’s a half decent rapper, retailers from TV’s to toothbrushes believe they can sell us anything  by affiliating themselves with anyone connected to England  and a majority of England fans are unable to distinguish the difference between patriotism and sheer arrogance.

Now maybe it’s me being naive but I really don’t know why everyone’s so negative about England’s prospects. Once you get past the quarter final and penalty jokes (which by the way are very boring now) what can you possibly have to be negative about. That was then and this is now! We have some of the best players in the world, a top class manager and as good a chance as anyone. Whether you agree or not with Capello’s decisions is irrelevant, he hasn’t done anything wrong.  Of course he has made questionable decisions and no manager is beyond criticism but you deal with them when they arrive and all Capello’s own have paid off.  The conventional Heskey and Lampard-Gerrad arguments will be highlighted and whilst I have my reservations about them both I also have 100% confidence in the manager so that overshadows that.

England fans like to see the team fail because they’ve become accustomed to it and don’t know how to deal with success.  The constant negativity is a trait they’ve adopted from the English press who are also battling with a change in culture implemented by Capello. He refuses to unveil his starting eleven and instead of him being applauded for keeping his cards close to his chest it’s said that he doesn’t know who they are. The ‘fit and playing’ argument is also used to criticize him when it just seems bizarre to do so. He hasn’t gone back on his word he’s simply applied common sense to his management. It’s been said that Gerrad has had one of his poorest seasons for Liverpool and towards the end of the season Rooney didn’t fit even one of the two criteria’s, so should the manager have dropped them  both? Under previous managers the press have been allowed access to all information and at times dictated the team which Capello has stamped out. The time for the fans intervention is after the world cup and anything before simply undermines the manager. If we draw the first game against USA you can already see a total overreaction when that shouldn’t be the case.  Italy also drew against them during the group stages and still went on to win the tournament.

We never look at our positives. We expect too much. We’re detrimental to England.  We’re so fixated on anticipating were the next negatives will come from that we now predict them. Before the final England friendly all the talk was about the possibility of injuries, the team came through unscathed and it was onto the next negative on the chances of Rooney getting sent off during the finals, and yesterday it was about whether not having a club would affect Joe Cole and how Capello’s reaction to the photographers could be a sign of unease.

When I say England fans it predominately refers to those fans of Top Four sides. Perhaps it’s a case of them being used to success at club level that make the national one secondary.  The argument has arisen several times and when I first heard it I dismissed it being a passionate supporter of both, but after this year it slowly became apparent. I’ve heard Chelsea fans threaten to stop supporting England depending on JT’s treatment (how you can stop supporting a club I will never know) and Man United fans flippantly declaring the fact that they pay Rooney’s wage, seemingly suggesting that entitles him to play until his legs fall off.

I’m not building England as the best team in the world because there are a few ahead of us but the world cup is merely another Cup Competition so they don’t need to be. Portsmouth and Inter weren’t the best but managed to reach the finals in quite unfashionable styles. The players have been branded overrated when that is definitely not the case. When England lose it’s turned into a national debate where we’re forced to re-evaluate our lives and that is tremendous pressure to place on eleven men. We don’t credit our success but are quick to highlight our failures. The games against Croatia were a typical example of this, they kept us out of the Euro’s and Steve Mcclaren became the national villain  with the infamous, ‘Wally with the brolly’  we beat them comprehensively a few month later and it’s not due to our improvement under Capello but the fact that they were no longer good enough.

Whilst I would love to see the World Cup in England I believe hosting the tournament could possibly hinder our chances. At least when it’s abroad the players are some distance from the high level of pessimistic publicity.  You can only win when you have the mentality of winners and it’s partially a supporter’s duty to instill that belief in their side rather than constant needless NEGATIVITY!

Is the English nation too negative? Please leave your comments below…