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Monday, June 28, 2010

Land of (waning) Hope and (faded) Glory

It's not easy being English during the World Cup. Particularly for me since I live in America and am without fail elected (without the appropriate fawning ceremony, I might add) as official spokesperson for the England team. I am called to account for each victory or loss, each peak or trough in team performance, and sometimes even the physical virtues of each WAG who totters alongside her man in preposterous Christian Louboutin heels.

In the months leading up to every tournament the English media whip up a storm of excitement and expectation; this, they can be relied upon to assure us, is OUR year. Gerrard is on top form, Ashley Cole has no peer at his position, and Wayne Rooney...well, what can be said that already hasn't? By the time kick-off rolls around, we English are practically hyperventilating. The St. George cross is flying from every car window, the Scots and Welsh have been reminded ad infinitum that their team did not qualify, and every newspaper throughout the land is urging the populace to rally around "the lads" and cheer them on to victory.

Then reality, and the forecast for the future, come crashing down. No World Cup in recent memory has so starkly illustrated the grimness of both as this one.

A dreary and spiritless performance against the US, a positively embarrassing and amateurish effort against Algeria, an occasional glimpse of what-could-have-been against Slovenia and then a 4-1 drubbing at the hands the Germans. As predictable as England's shameful play was, even more so was the subsequent wave of insipid excuses and accusations by the fans and pundits.

It has been widely opined that the goal Frank Lampard had disallowed was a contributing factor to the eventual loss; the thinking being that the psychological momentum would have been with England as they went into the dressing room at half-time having just scored the equalizer, and the Germans would have ended the half on a down-note. If this theory is accepted then it says more about the mental weakness of the English players than it does about anything else.

This is what is most frustrating about being a supporter of the England team. We cry and moan about disallowed goals, about handballs and offsides and make every other conceivable excuse, but the bottom line is that the team should not be in a position where a bad call by a referee decides the outcome of the game. Do I have a solution? I hear you ask. Why yes, indeed I do: play better defence and score more goals...I'm somewhat surprised noone has put forth this novel proposition before now.

For me, a casual football fan (to say the least - I don't follow the Premiership and am only interested in the sport when England is playing), the more distressing and sinister aspect of the international game is the English fan's insistence that every encounter with the Germans be equated to World War II. I read a newspaper article ahead of Sunday's match in which yet another War analogy was made: France had folded, as had the Italians, so it was left to the English to face Germany (no mention of support from the US, I noticed). This constant droning on about "winning" World War II and comparing it to (of all things) a football match is as insulting to those of EVERY nationality who lost their lives in the conflict as it is a pathetic attempt to up the drama ante.

It is base rabble-rousing of this kind that football REALLY doesn't need. Is it wise to further antagonize thousands of drunk and adrenalized fans, already furious about losing the game, by invocations of war and nationalism? You don't need to answer that.

We also need to stop reminding anyone who will listen that England won the Cup in 1966. Yes, 1966. There are volcanoes younger than that achievement. As they say in my adopted home country: Dude, move on.


BONUS

Perhaps my favorite story of the whole tournament was that during the 7-0 whipping that North Korea took from Portugal, North Korea stopped broadcasting the game. Is that not totalitarianism defined? "Citizenry, this game is no longer happening. What you have just seen was an hallucination. Return to work." It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

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