Our youthful Mayor of London has misidentified the major causes of England’s lack of football prowess.  Whilst one might concede that the lack of competitveness is a minor contributor to England’s failure to progress far at the World Cup, it is far from being the major one. We have some of the finest footballers in the world. Speaking to some German and Danish colleagues, they both thought our players far superior to theirs. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry and others would feature in many a pundits European or World fantasy team. But England lacks a National Identity. Where is the English parliament, the English leader, the English Law, the English way and the English Language? We suffer from nationalist schizophrenia.

 It lacks players who see the World Cup as the pinancle of their careers. And with so many players actual playing in the English Premier League, the top in the world, many spend most of the year seeing their English team mates as rivals.

Yet it is the English spirit that is wrong for the game. We see out own faults and the advantages of others. We share our culture and are open to diversity. So the World Game of Football is Englis; the parlimentary system of the leading nations is English Liberal Democracy; in most countries fought between the English political philosphies of Liberalism, conservatism and moderate socialism; the langguage of the world is English, the system of law in many nations is based on English Common Law. Flipping to the other side of nationalist schizophrenia, we can say much of modern science is British, as is economics and many of the leading inventions.

So whilst we navel gaze on why we cannot win right to display a small trophy for four years, we forget that this small island determines the rules of the game in a much broader sense than Football.

(an Update of yesterday’s post)