“We lose too many balls!” said Stevie G.
I’m not sure we lose enough balls actually. I think there should be a gentle and obviously not literal castration taking place now. Then again, is there such a thing as a gentle castration? Sounds even more painful!

Well, the oldest teenager has vanished upstairs in disgust as though his parents are personally responsible for the fact that Steven Gerrard has lost his pace, desire and ability. He has stropped in synch with Shrek who somehow thinks the fans are to blame for the fact that he cannot control the ball. I mean, for goodness sake Wayne. You looked as though you expected people to feed the ball to your feet and keep allowing you to take a free kick until you scored.

I don’t know whether it is just me but I don’t think it is. There seems to be a general lack of passion around. The flags are up but they are not swooping in the summer breeze. The boyz are down the pub, sipping their beer but it appears to be more to do with ritual than desire.
There’s no “tingle”.
And tingle is so important. You need tingle in life. It is the physical feeling of the spiritual essence.

I cannot really remember the last World Cup. I remember 1974 distinctly with Johannes Cruijff and Franz Beckenbauer being the battling captains; both of whom oozed flair and passion with every graceful movement on the pitch. They had intelligence and it showed in their football. They didn’t ever just kick a ball, and unlike Rooney, they never expected the game to revolve around them as though they had god given right to dominate the proceedings.
The referee that day was Jack Taylor. That is probably why I remember the match. My dad and grandfather, who wasn’t a huge football fan, were so delighted to have their ‘friend’ refereeing a World Cup Final, he being a Wolverhampton butcher by trade.

What did Bill Shankly say? “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much more important than that” or words to that effect.
Shanks, me old mate, you were wrong. Of course, you knew that but since you spoke those infamous words people have taken them literally.
Football is not that important and yet there are people today who will be waking up with sore heads and heavy hearts, not because of an over indulgent night of alcohol but because of the humiliation and despondency of raised expectations being yet again thwarted by a group of men who cannot gel together as a team.

Once England loses to Slovenia on Wednesday afternoon, there will be the usual post mortems. The manager will be too foreign, the fans will be too hopeful, the goalkeepers will be too old or too young, the players will be too overpaid. There will be all sorts of excuses; some of which are justified and some of which are xenophobic nonsense. What very well may be true is the fact that the passion is simply not there.

They talk about it. John Terry, being interviewed by James Cordon, in a testosterone fuelled love-in, talked passionately about how he feels when he puts on the England shirt and strides out in front of a large crowd all vying for a victory. But do you know something Johnny boy, I didn’t feel your passion last night darling. Your head was low and I’m not sure you have recovered from the loss of pride in having the captaincy removed.
On that note, of course, whether you like the man or not, he’s more of a natural leader/captain than Stevie G. Both are not even half the players that they used to be but I do think I would rather see Terry wearing the leader’s armband.

Here’s a little known fact. Did you know that England have never won the World Cup under a Tory government? The writing was on the wall when the coalition smooched together in the garden of Number 10.
Our World Cup was effectively over then.

Obviously that is a stupid statement considering there has only been one successful England team when Harold Wilson had just crept into power but referring back to Terry, the chances of England winning the World Cup were further limited by the turmoil of the changes in captaincy. Wayne Bridge didn’t help matters with his petulant rattle throwing behaviour over JT’s sexual behaviour with his ex-partner.
Let us get this straight once and for all. John Terry had sex with Wayne Bridge’s EX girlfriend. Did you all get that? She was his EX. Their relationship was a Polygon – dead parrot and all that. It had ceased to exist. Wayne was a free agent and so was Vanessa. They could choose who they had sexual relationships with and Mr. T made himself available.

Now it may have been uncomfortable for Wayne to accept that his old friend was sleeping with his ex-partner but let’s face facts, it’s hardly the first time this has ever happened to anyone in life. It is also hardly the first time it has happened in a work situation either.
If people had just stopped for a minute to consider the consequences of their behaviour, and admittedly JT should be included in that, then there could have been a more considered approach to the whole affair.
Cappello could have said to the great British press, “Look Guys, I know like Salome, you want the proverbial head of John the Captain, but you know, I’m not sure I should be sacking a bloke for one indiscretion between the sheets. The pretty French girl was not involved with anyone else at the time and that should be the end of the matter”.
Bridge should have had more emotional intelligence and looked at the situation with a view to how his peevishness would affect the rest of the team. Terry should probably have kept his dick in his trousers knowing that the press were almost bound to find out about this. The rest of the team could have been more forthcoming in their protestations about such a sacking.
In all of these “what if’s” or “should have’s” there lies a few too many truths about the glorious game that people are still choosing to ignore.

There is selfishness and greed that goes way beyond the astronomical amounts of money that these people are paid. The personal financial gain for footballers makes them feel invincible. It suggests to them that they are infallible and the world owes them more than the £100K per week that they receive. It invokes immature and selfish behaviour, the very opposite of team togetherness, commitment to one another and altruism.

The power of a footballer in a position such as Terry also makes them feel infallible. We have created icons of these men for the mere ability of being able to play with their balls, and they are not even as good as their aforementioned predecessors who never seemed to trip up over their idolisation, or maybe it was more suppressed by the media. I don’t think so though.
Terry thought that he could get away with his horniness. He thought he was so important that he could make himself and the situation invisible. These people are not gods and yet the public continue to expect godlike behaviour from them. In return these boys begin to think that they can do anything, to the extent that they feel they can play football together without the work, the intelligence, the togetherness. England does not have a god-given right to win the World Cup, however much one would hope for such a victory.

No, the simple fact is that there are some serious flaws in the English game at present. Cliché alert! There is no “I” in team and yet there are probably at least nine of them, or that is what I saw in the game tonight. Wayne Rooney was the biggest “I” on the pitch. Me, me, me, me, me. It is all about me. It is my chance to shine, it is my right to be the hero.
There is too much expectation.
False hope is as bad as no hope at all.
There appears to be no desire. IF JT is right and every person on that pitch feels the pride and passion that he alleges to, then why can we not see it in every second of the game. Why do people give up in the box when the personal glory is not going to come their way? Why do they resort to petty cheating when the supposed flair that they have has been left behind in Birmingham, Manchester or the capital city? Gareth Barry went down on one occasion with his eyes and head directly transfixed on the referee. The blatancy of his dive and demands was sickening.

And whether you can cope with this or not, the financial situation and the huge earnings are taking their toll on the game, and I suspect it is not just England. Look at France, Spain, Italy, Germany. They are all suffering from this lack of cohesion between the alleged greats of the footballing world. Even the revered Messi may not have been the best player on the pitch for Argentina the other day.
I suspect that it is no coincidence that these teams are struggling to find consistency against nations that still seem to have some passion and are less well-paid than their European counterparts.
The big boys may well lose out because they have lost their sense of wonderment at the game.

Shankly was right. To some, it is a matter of life and death but what is increasingly happening is that football is becoming separated from life and death. The rules of both apply to football and footballers as much as it does to the rest of us. No-one can live effectively in life or can cope with death without the foresight to think intelligently, to respect people and their individual rights, to empathise and to collaborate, to feel passion and understand the nature of wellbeing.
Nobody can live successfully without these things, and they cost nothing monetarily.

It’s time to wake up boys otherwise the prophecies of doom are going to be trailing along with you all the way back to the airport and across the continents once more. Premature ejection is imminent.

Of course, there is always 2014.