Three lambs on the shirt

Barack Obama has something in common with the England Football team. For good or bad, he made politics interesting again during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Yet since he has been in power, his approval ratings have started to drop as people realise with just how unreachable their levels of expectation were.

Meanwhile, at every World Cup or European Championship, and each time England hires a new manager the entire country cries “Football’s coming home!” the inevitable ensues, as England fall embarrassingly far of their ambitions. The fans are as deluded as the Apprentice candidates.

The final straw came last Wednesday when France beat a dismal three lions 2-1 on English turf, at Wembley.

This summer, France had the worst World Cup of all football powerhouses – after only qualifying thanks to the hand of Thierry Henry. They mustered only one point in the group stages, losing to lightweights Mexico and South Africa. The players went on strike (it is their national sport) boycotting a training session, and their best striker Nicolas Anelka was sent home like a naughty school boy.

That England only had a marginally better World Cup is not the issue. It is their respective responses to a tournament as poor as the latest Justin Bieber single that are markedly different.

The French players apologised to the fans. Manager Raymond Domenech was swiftly ushered out, and in his place came Laurent Blanc. In his first game in charge, Blanc suspended every player from the World Cup squad as a collective punishment. Wednesday’s victory was another step towards the team’s gradual renewal.

England responded to a dismal sojourn in South Africa by keeping Fabio Capello in charge. Not because they had confidence in his abilities, but because he was too expensive to dismiss. On a £6 million/year salary, the Italian would cost the FA £10 million to sack. By comparison, the French Football Federation pays Blanc around £900,000/year. For the record, Barack Obama earns circa £250,000/year – who do you think represents the best value for money?

It is incredulous that the FA are foolish enough to think they can win a trophy by throwing money at an Italian who can barely speak English, has a strained relationship with the players, and has done little to rejuvenate a stale team since taking over from Steve McClaren. Capello’s club record aside, he has no international pedigree and has failed to instill any freshness into the squad.

Managers aside, football teams cannot win big trophies without the best goalkeepers. Or to paraphrase Jose Mourinho, you cannot make the best omelettes without the best eggs. Spain, the current World Champions, boast two of the world’s finest keepers – one who plays for Real Madrid, the other for Barcelona. England have a dearth of decent goalies, and the first-choice keepers for the top three Premier League teams are not English. The same applies with strikers. England can only boast Wayne Rooney, who failed to score at the World Cup. Crouch, Defoe, and C. Cole are not world class – they lack, forgive the expression, the X factor. They are perennial underachievers, the footballing equivalent of Tim Henman.

The team will remain unchanged right up until the end of Euro 2012. Whether this continuity will bring them closer together and improve performances, or just prolong the inevitable string of sub-standard results remains to be seen. One thing is for certain – in the short term, the fans will continue to boo, much to Wayne Rooney’s pathetic chagrin.

So much for the “The Audacity of Hope”, it is all rather more “The Delusion of Hope.”