What gets me about watching England is not that they are overpaid, although they are. It's not that they are thick, which many of them are. It's not that they are unable to emulate what thousands of people manage every day in parks across the country and actually play together with each other. It's not that these supposed athletes at the peak of their fitness are perennially injured. It's that I really give a damn.
Now, this blog is all about the fact that I know next to nothing about football, a fact I freely admit to. Asked to explain the offside rule I would probably gibber a little, laugh theatrically, point to something behind my interrogator and then leg it for the door. I know what it is - usually far better than the line judge, naturally - but I just can't put it into words. At times like the World Cup I stand shoulder to shoulder with millions of other, similarly ignorant fools who pay to watch these oafs as they miss passes, fall over balls, lose attackers and fail miserably to find the other team's goal despite it being huge and white and in the same place at every game. Knowing nothing is remarkably liberating because it means that you can say what you like secure in the knowledge that it really doesn't matter and that your immediate neighbours know about the same.
For Father's Day I got a banana holder, a huge yellow plastic box that looks like an ambitious sex aid but whose sole function is to keep my morning banana in tip-top condition on the trip to work. It works perfectly. It is a design classic, a marriage of form and function and I love it. It is as if a little piece of the jigsaw of my life slotted into place.
The England players all play in the richest, most famous league in the world. They benefit from among the best facilities in the world. They (mostly) have good managers and hard-working support staff and they are doing something they have been trained to do since childhood. They all play the same game - football, although it is at times difficult to believe this. They are all considered among the best players in the country. My banana holder has been designed for its job and does it with aplomb. Why can't 11 England players who have been 'designed', nurtured and set up for one thing do similar?
Why can't the England team match, say, Slovenia, a team from a small country whose players are clearly talented enough to reach major finals and who, crucially, recognise each other on the pitch and manage to play together? They won't win the World Cup but they will play together as a unit and do their damnedest to deliver for their country and they will be respected and lauded for doing so. If the Slovenian football team was a plastic food container it could lay claim to being a banana holder. The team has earned the right.
Could England? Hmm. On current form, we are talking about one of those plastic dishes you get a takeaway in. It works fine once but try and re-use it and it splits very easily. It also gets stained with the sauce so it is useless for storing other items as a result. (What is in sweet and sour sauce which makes it so toxic?)
England need to rediscover their ability to do what they are paid to do, pure and simple. Nothing more, no psychological b*lls**t, no media interviews, no photos in hideous pants. All we want is a team which plays football, preferably at the level it is fabled to be able to play at. We need a banana holder not a takeaway tub.
Can England deliver? Any rice?
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