England's World Cup team is like Brexit – we’ve all given up, so now anything’s a bonus

Gradually the myth of natural dominance has been replaced by a more realistic sense of where we are, and a national mood of ‘bloody hell, we’ve beaten Tunisia, how have we managed that?’ 

Mark Steel
Thursday 28 June 2018 17:24 BST
Comments

Here’s an idea for how the football authorities could make the World Cup compelling, even for people who resolutely take no interest in it.

When the players feign an injury, howling and clutching a foot to hold the game up before getting up and running about as normal, the referee should allow the other team to inflict the amount of pain he was pretending to be in.

A doctor would say, “I reckon a garden rake whacked onto the b*****ks should do it,” then the other team would carry out the order and they’d all resume playing.

The effect the games have on human behaviour is one reason why the competition should be studied by everyone, even if you hate football. It’s even more intriguing now, with the use of video replays for decisions.

A player will wave their hands and stare in disbelief, complaining to the referee, “how can you possibly decide I wasn’t fouled, based on repeatedly watching the incident in slow-motion from seven different angles, rather than on the way I clutched my face and rolled 300 yards out of the stadium and then a quarter of a mile up the road and through the back door of the Kremlin?”

But the tournament is also crucial for anyone studying history and politics. For example, England’s past World Cup failures were nothing to do with football, and more to do with Mr Turton, a teacher in my junior school.

“Other countries are grateful to us, for showing them how to run things in a civilised way,” he’d tell us. And this was the basis of most lessons. For biology, he’d say something like, “Other countries have leopards and scorpions that are determined to kill you, but in England we have rabbits and hamsters and things that are just right, because this is England.”

And our weather was ideal, with the right amount of everything, because this was England, not like silly Africa where it’s so hot that most people melt and get licked up by iguanas.

It would have seemed normal for him to say, “The trouble with Spain is sometimes it goes upside-down, and everyone falls off, but that doesn’t happen here because it’s England.”

Generations were brought up like this, to believe we were naturally the best because we were ENGLAND. So at each World Cup, instead of hoping the team does alright, there was a sense we ought to win, unless something disturbs the natural order. This was despite our record at World Cups being roughly the same as Denmark.

The expectations have been completely irrational, as if there was a competition for which country has the longest name, and everyone yelled, “this time I feel England has a really good chance against Lithuania.”

This could also make the atmosphere among England fans more angry than joyful, with contests to see who was most patriotic by turning their house into the biggest St Georges flag, and an item on the news about someone who’d kidnapped Bobby Charlton and wedged him into their chimney “because I’m PROUD of my country”.

England v Belgium World Cup preview

So the players would be struck with fear, strangled by the certainty that whoever made a mistake would have effigies made of them that were exploded in town squares while the mayor danced naked to ensure the gods brought locusts and maggots upon him for his sloppy back-pass.

But now players from previous campaigns, such as Kieron Dyer, have spoken openly about this experience, saying it made them incapable of playing with any freedom. Rio Ferdinand revealed the England team he was part of was split with club rivalries. Frank Lampard and Gary Lineker discuss the social and psychological reasons why England players have underperformed, as pundits in the build up to a game, until you expect Alan Shearer to say, “The trouble is, Gary, a false notion of superiority flowing from economic and naval 19th century global dominance, created anxiety disorders that made it difficult to cope with any team playing five in midfield. So it’s no wonder we lost to Iceland.”

Gradually, the myth of natural dominance has been replaced by a more realistic sense of where we are, and a national mood of “bloody hell, we’ve beaten Tunisia, how have we managed that?”

Instead of assuming we can beat anyone, before the Belgium game half the country was hoping we’d come second in the group “because then we’ll play either the Isle of Man or the South Pole in the next round, and Atlantis in the quarterfinal who won’t like the dry conditions and that gives us a chance of staying in it for a while.”

It means England has its most likeable and positive team for decades. Because a calm sense of our true position improves the country, so if you want England to do well, say, “they’ve done ever so well to get this far”, pretend to ignore the games altogether, and maybe Harry Kane’s neighbours should write to him, asking if he’s alright as they haven’t seen him in the area.

Whereas those still yelling, “don’t bother with evidence, we’ll win because we’re ENGLAND,” make us less likely to succeed. If you had to guess, you might say the percentage of people who think like this, comes out at roughly 52 per cent.

And the number who have accepted a more measured stance is about 48 per cent. And even if England win, they’ll spend the next two years demanding a second World Cup, on the grounds that no one understood the rules of this one, and in any case it was only advisory.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in