Well, the dust is settling, the team have arrived back and the country is not happy. Fabio Capello takes a lot of criticism. His standard of English, his tactics, his squad selection, his team selection, his substitutions and last but not least his nationality. The players do not fare much better, with the major criticisms of lack of effort and being too comfortable in their lifestyles. The FA come in for scrutiny too, not least with their decision to renew the manager’s contract before the tournament, and thus being liable for a big pay off should they seek to replace the manager. With Capello showing no inclination to resign there is a sticky situation to be resolved.
Excuses have been put forward such as tiredness due to the domestic season, but this does not ring so true when we see overseas players in the Premiership performing well at the World Cup. For whatever reason the World Cup finals were a disaster for the national team. Maybe we do need a winter break, but it is not certain that is the answer.
Certainly the feeling of the country is that it is time to start anew. New manager, new players and new attitudes. An English manager seems to be the preference amongst the fans. Let’s build a young team, selecting players that will still be in their twenties in 2014. It remains to be seen how the England team’s performance will impact the national game as a whole, one thing is for sure, there are alot of football fans that are very disappointed and let down by this latest chapter in the national team’s history. We qualified well, but when the time to produce and deliver came, nothing happened. Two draws, one win and our worst ever World Cup defeat… that was our World Cup.
