World Cup Fever
I don't tend to be one for big sporting theories - more medium-sized. What I mean is, when it comes to the England football team losing all but one Penalty Shoot-Out in a major tournament and Germany winning every one for over 30 years, I'm not interested in ideas about overarching national psyche, but I'll extend to the notion that Germany used to practice it more, a couple of times it was down to luck, it became self-perpetuating, some England players therefore went into shoot-outs with fear, it became more than likely it would continue to happen. That's my idea of a sporting theory - "lots of little things" serves to explain hoodoos and superstitions and patterns in my book.
So, what's the big idea behind England's major sporting teams' recent profound failures in World Cup? Recent, you say? Perennial, more like it... But no, recent is right. Things have changed. Things have got particularly bad. For decades, across football, rugby and, to a lesser extent, cricket, England have done as well you'd expect them to do. They've rarely been the best, but they've been a knockout stages team - sometimes this has meant going out early in the knockout stages, sometimes managing to get late on, to the final or, once or twice, to win. The competition has been some kind of journey, albeit a journey usually likely to end in despair.
But not recently, no journey. Just despair.
So, I've a couple of thoughts. First of all, this isn't happening to the women's teams - they're at different stages of their journey and still near the top. The women's football team are actually as good as they've been, 3rd in the world, moving up from the ranks of the also-rans. The cricket team are always near the top, won the 2009 World Cup, just 3rd in 2013, a comparative failure but still a journey, whereas the rugby team are, of course, World Champions.
Is there anything in that, how whatever's afflicting the men's teams in our national sports is not afflicting their female counterparts? I think there may be, which I'll touch on.
Anyway, let's go over recent results. Cricket - England have never been great in World Cups, they came second a few times early on (last time in 1992) and since then have tended to go out in the quarter finals. Usually there's been the odd good performance but generally a bit weak and unlikely. In 2015, of course, it got worse. They were terrible, but still only needed to beat Bangladesh to go through to the knockouts. But they didn't. Group stage failure.
Football - after years of usually knockout stage loss, the 2014 World Cup saw group stage failure - damp squib, a draw with Costa Rica the only thing to show.
Rugby - England have been near the top in rugby for a long time - they still are, in the rankings. they've always reached the knockout stages, losing in the quarter-finals in 2011 was a massive disappointment - this year, well, we know what's happened this year ...
OK, first things first, in all three recent tournaments, England had unusually tough groups - particularly in the rugby, ludicrously tough. So sure, there's luck. New Zealand have played really poorly so far in this tournament, but they've got three comfortable wins to their name in their very easy group.
But England have gone out by losing games they should have won. Cricket - Bangladesh, Football - Italy (and Uruguay), Rugby - Wales. They lost crunch games where they didn't per se play terribly, they just didn't raise their game, produce the magic, rise to their opponents' challenge. Squibs have never been damper.
This level of abject is new.
So, first of all, there's a case of "be careful what you wish for" or "the grass is always greener" (or whatever other cliche fits better). When Sven's England went out of the 2006 World Cup at the quarter-finals having won three games, drawn two, conceded just two goals in almost 500 minutes of football, then came home to be treated as national disgraces, likewise when Martin Johnson's England won four games and then lost narrowly to the eventual finalists at the 2011 World Cup, to be treated like bumbling, shambling scandalous idiots, those are times a bit of perspective would have been useful, as there's always a long, long way further to fall.
But, is there anything behind it? Is it just coincidence? Has something infected the consciousness of English men at the very highest level of the national sports? Quite possibly. These are not bad sides. England's cricket team have had plenty of success in the last decade, particularly in test cricket. They were, briefly, Number 1 ODI team in the world. The rugby team has played at a solid standard since the last World Cup, beating some southern hemisphere teams, usually winning 4 out of 5 Six Nations games. The football team progresses very confidently through group stages and usually stays around the Top 10 in the FIFA rankings. It's not a precipitous fall in actual standards, just a fall in achievement in the most pressurized environment.
I have a few thoughts - I'd rather they didn't tie together and remained just food for thought. As I said, I'm not a "big ideas" person.
Fear of failure - I think this has become overwhelming, and I think the sheer abuse for decent but not great performances hasn't helped. They play with fear in these tournaments. They plan to win and no more, and no less. They plan in a limited way. They overplan in a limited way. The cricket team and the rugby team have talked about the four year plan from one World Cup to the next, as if it's all meticulously mapped out, then, in both cases, it's all gone to shit in the months before, whether it's sacking captains, excluding best players from squads for disciplinary reasons etc. You can't have a four year plan, it's stupid. The bigger the plan, the more can go wrong with it. Ditch the big plans!
I wonder if the semblance of a "big plan" behind Clive Woodward's 2003 campaign of glory has ruined English sport. Much better to take inspiration from the haphazard near-glory of 2007, perhaps. Play like underdogs.
In those key games, the opposition have played with a sense of glory and fearlessness which England, while the better side, have been unable to muster. They've been close games, but have gone against England - they haven't won a "crunch" game in a major tournament since the group stages of the 2012 Football European Championships. But, you know, that was the Euros.
They've also won crunch games in the Ashes, they've won crunch games in the Six Nations. I'm going to return to the fear of failure thing. English cricket had its "Stokes moment" and ran with it - in the first test of the 2015 summer against New Zealand, England were heading to defeat but a magical counter-attack led by Ben Stokes set the template for the summer - England played wild, risky, cricket. There were some bad losses. But it was fun, and we did win the Ashes. We also finally looked like a one-day side again. Please let's not turn this into a four-year plan. Long may it continue, but don't let's plan for it to continue, let's just put in the players who play that way and go match to match, series to series.
English rugby had its own "Stokes moment", the final match of the Six Nations where they threw caution to the wind and beat France 53-37. Mad rugby, such fun, such glory, ultimately in failing to get enough points to win the tournament. Any sign of that since? No chance. Safety first took over again, in the squad selection policy, in the warm-up games, in the tournament selection policy and in the matches. England got ahead of Wales and froze, they had the chance to hammer them. Fear, a refusal to allow inspiration in.
OK, that's that, but iIve got another few, slightly, half-formed ideas. This is not a bad time for English/British sport, far from it. Froome and Team Sky, historically good performances in the World Swimming and Athletics championships, several boxing world champions, Andy Murray and the Davis Cup final, the whole damn Olympic shebang. Britain is good, great, at sport, these days. So perhaps there's too much sport to go round, money being shared round, or perhaps it's that we're better when we're Great Britain, not England, as English national identity is so hard to play for these days. Or perhaps we've become better at individual sports, or sports where the press don't intrude so much, or perhaps it's just a question of arc, England in those major men's sports is just at a certain point of the arc which they're not in other sports, including the women's equivalent. Great Britain were rubbish in the Olympics in the 1990s. Perhaps the success in the other sports means the British sporting public doesn't care about the World Cups enough anymore. Perhaps, they're all "perhaps", these ideas.
I've said a lot. Some of it contradicts itself. Really, it's just about noting how bad England have now become in World Cups in general and wondering if there's something behind it. Looking at my piece, the phrase I'm picking out where I might just be onto something is "Ditch the four year plan". Because that's not what great clubs do, that's not the essence of sport. It's "Take each game as it comes". Because four year plans take four years to come together and seconds to fall apart. Grow the hair, change the kit, let it hang out for a while.
Right now, one can kid oneself into having high-ish hopes for the future of the football and cricket team, but let's enjoy the now of it. What's worse than a football executive saying "We're planning to win the 2022 World Cup"? Plan to win the next game, plan to win it 5-3, or 53-37 or scoring at 8 runs an over. Give yourselves a break.
So, what's the big idea behind England's major sporting teams' recent profound failures in World Cup? Recent, you say? Perennial, more like it... But no, recent is right. Things have changed. Things have got particularly bad. For decades, across football, rugby and, to a lesser extent, cricket, England have done as well you'd expect them to do. They've rarely been the best, but they've been a knockout stages team - sometimes this has meant going out early in the knockout stages, sometimes managing to get late on, to the final or, once or twice, to win. The competition has been some kind of journey, albeit a journey usually likely to end in despair.
But not recently, no journey. Just despair.
So, I've a couple of thoughts. First of all, this isn't happening to the women's teams - they're at different stages of their journey and still near the top. The women's football team are actually as good as they've been, 3rd in the world, moving up from the ranks of the also-rans. The cricket team are always near the top, won the 2009 World Cup, just 3rd in 2013, a comparative failure but still a journey, whereas the rugby team are, of course, World Champions.
Is there anything in that, how whatever's afflicting the men's teams in our national sports is not afflicting their female counterparts? I think there may be, which I'll touch on.
Anyway, let's go over recent results. Cricket - England have never been great in World Cups, they came second a few times early on (last time in 1992) and since then have tended to go out in the quarter finals. Usually there's been the odd good performance but generally a bit weak and unlikely. In 2015, of course, it got worse. They were terrible, but still only needed to beat Bangladesh to go through to the knockouts. But they didn't. Group stage failure.
Football - after years of usually knockout stage loss, the 2014 World Cup saw group stage failure - damp squib, a draw with Costa Rica the only thing to show.
Rugby - England have been near the top in rugby for a long time - they still are, in the rankings. they've always reached the knockout stages, losing in the quarter-finals in 2011 was a massive disappointment - this year, well, we know what's happened this year ...
OK, first things first, in all three recent tournaments, England had unusually tough groups - particularly in the rugby, ludicrously tough. So sure, there's luck. New Zealand have played really poorly so far in this tournament, but they've got three comfortable wins to their name in their very easy group.
But England have gone out by losing games they should have won. Cricket - Bangladesh, Football - Italy (and Uruguay), Rugby - Wales. They lost crunch games where they didn't per se play terribly, they just didn't raise their game, produce the magic, rise to their opponents' challenge. Squibs have never been damper.
This level of abject is new.
So, first of all, there's a case of "be careful what you wish for" or "the grass is always greener" (or whatever other cliche fits better). When Sven's England went out of the 2006 World Cup at the quarter-finals having won three games, drawn two, conceded just two goals in almost 500 minutes of football, then came home to be treated as national disgraces, likewise when Martin Johnson's England won four games and then lost narrowly to the eventual finalists at the 2011 World Cup, to be treated like bumbling, shambling scandalous idiots, those are times a bit of perspective would have been useful, as there's always a long, long way further to fall.
But, is there anything behind it? Is it just coincidence? Has something infected the consciousness of English men at the very highest level of the national sports? Quite possibly. These are not bad sides. England's cricket team have had plenty of success in the last decade, particularly in test cricket. They were, briefly, Number 1 ODI team in the world. The rugby team has played at a solid standard since the last World Cup, beating some southern hemisphere teams, usually winning 4 out of 5 Six Nations games. The football team progresses very confidently through group stages and usually stays around the Top 10 in the FIFA rankings. It's not a precipitous fall in actual standards, just a fall in achievement in the most pressurized environment.
I have a few thoughts - I'd rather they didn't tie together and remained just food for thought. As I said, I'm not a "big ideas" person.
Fear of failure - I think this has become overwhelming, and I think the sheer abuse for decent but not great performances hasn't helped. They play with fear in these tournaments. They plan to win and no more, and no less. They plan in a limited way. They overplan in a limited way. The cricket team and the rugby team have talked about the four year plan from one World Cup to the next, as if it's all meticulously mapped out, then, in both cases, it's all gone to shit in the months before, whether it's sacking captains, excluding best players from squads for disciplinary reasons etc. You can't have a four year plan, it's stupid. The bigger the plan, the more can go wrong with it. Ditch the big plans!
I wonder if the semblance of a "big plan" behind Clive Woodward's 2003 campaign of glory has ruined English sport. Much better to take inspiration from the haphazard near-glory of 2007, perhaps. Play like underdogs.
In those key games, the opposition have played with a sense of glory and fearlessness which England, while the better side, have been unable to muster. They've been close games, but have gone against England - they haven't won a "crunch" game in a major tournament since the group stages of the 2012 Football European Championships. But, you know, that was the Euros.
They've also won crunch games in the Ashes, they've won crunch games in the Six Nations. I'm going to return to the fear of failure thing. English cricket had its "Stokes moment" and ran with it - in the first test of the 2015 summer against New Zealand, England were heading to defeat but a magical counter-attack led by Ben Stokes set the template for the summer - England played wild, risky, cricket. There were some bad losses. But it was fun, and we did win the Ashes. We also finally looked like a one-day side again. Please let's not turn this into a four-year plan. Long may it continue, but don't let's plan for it to continue, let's just put in the players who play that way and go match to match, series to series.
English rugby had its own "Stokes moment", the final match of the Six Nations where they threw caution to the wind and beat France 53-37. Mad rugby, such fun, such glory, ultimately in failing to get enough points to win the tournament. Any sign of that since? No chance. Safety first took over again, in the squad selection policy, in the warm-up games, in the tournament selection policy and in the matches. England got ahead of Wales and froze, they had the chance to hammer them. Fear, a refusal to allow inspiration in.
OK, that's that, but iIve got another few, slightly, half-formed ideas. This is not a bad time for English/British sport, far from it. Froome and Team Sky, historically good performances in the World Swimming and Athletics championships, several boxing world champions, Andy Murray and the Davis Cup final, the whole damn Olympic shebang. Britain is good, great, at sport, these days. So perhaps there's too much sport to go round, money being shared round, or perhaps it's that we're better when we're Great Britain, not England, as English national identity is so hard to play for these days. Or perhaps we've become better at individual sports, or sports where the press don't intrude so much, or perhaps it's just a question of arc, England in those major men's sports is just at a certain point of the arc which they're not in other sports, including the women's equivalent. Great Britain were rubbish in the Olympics in the 1990s. Perhaps the success in the other sports means the British sporting public doesn't care about the World Cups enough anymore. Perhaps, they're all "perhaps", these ideas.
I've said a lot. Some of it contradicts itself. Really, it's just about noting how bad England have now become in World Cups in general and wondering if there's something behind it. Looking at my piece, the phrase I'm picking out where I might just be onto something is "Ditch the four year plan". Because that's not what great clubs do, that's not the essence of sport. It's "Take each game as it comes". Because four year plans take four years to come together and seconds to fall apart. Grow the hair, change the kit, let it hang out for a while.
Right now, one can kid oneself into having high-ish hopes for the future of the football and cricket team, but let's enjoy the now of it. What's worse than a football executive saying "We're planning to win the 2022 World Cup"? Plan to win the next game, plan to win it 5-3, or 53-37 or scoring at 8 runs an over. Give yourselves a break.
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