From Pat Gillett : England vs Iceland
Hi Myles,
Having read your piece on Nice, I thought I’d offer an alternative opinion on one of your points.
You say that the England players live in a cushioned parallel universe, disconnected from reality. To me the first part is true, as it is of all of the professional footballers in the top leagues.
But I feel that they have a pretty good handle on reality.
And the reality is that they are not star talents, that their wages and transfer values reflect the fact that they are English players in the EPL, paid double or triple for their domestic brand value, not their football value. And when they get to a tournament this accurate self-knowledge scares the crap out of them, so they underperform even further.
Compounding the problem, the public is so confident that there is an embarrassment of football talent that there’s no chance of a manager building a team around a system – the pressure to pick the most famous from the fit list is too great.
I mean, look at Gerrard and Lampard and Beckham in the MLS. Even there they’re not a league apart. Sure they’re at the end of their careers but also they’re just not that good.
There are plenty of other factors sure, but if there’s a persistent psychological problem as there seems to be, it’s caused by fans’ delusions confronting the players’ reality.
But it’s fundamental to the EPL and it’s not going to change.
Myles says:
Thanks, Pat. Yours is a thoughtful take.
We need more thoughtful comments from readers to balance the raw emotions and random reflections of the old blogger.
For me, ANR’s been more fun since it became a forum as well as a column.