World Cup: England and Their Curious Relationship with the Press

Covering England is an interesting business for much of the British press. As they will inevitably always tell you, it isn't in their interests for England to do badly, as their sales would go through the roof if a miracle occurred and Roy Hodgson's team actually won the World Cup next year.

And if England didn't even qualify, their own nice trips out to Brazil would be dramatically curtailed, as interest dictates coverage.

Still, that doesn't prevent many of them from being unrelentingly miserable about the national team and its prospects. Of course, this largely doesn't apply to what we'll snobbishly call the "quality" press, and such sensationalism is mainly confined to the tabloids.

It is, of course, very easy to look down on tabloid papers, but their readership numbers mean it's not quite so easy to dismiss what they have to say.

The English press feed off the English team, for despite the apathy and lack of interest in international football that appears to be spreading, England is the thing that generally unites a divided football country. There is never the attention on a title race or a single club event that an international tournament generates.

Every England manager, regardless of his level of competence, is ground down by the press eventually. Graham Taylor was turned into a root vegetable on the front page of the Sun. The same paper described Fabio Capello as a "Jackass" in 2010 for not picking Jack Wilshere and Andy Carroll for his squad, despite those two players having a grand total of 23 Premier League appearances between them at the time.

Even Bobby Robson, who guided England to their best tournament performance since 1966 when reaching the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup, was instructed by a Mirror front page, after a game against Saudi Arabia, "In the name of Allah, go."

And, of course, it's happening again. Few could describe England's recent performances under Roy Hodgson as anything above "decent," and a realistic appraisal would probably be in the "average" range.

But observe Steven Howard of the Sun's appraisal (subscription required) of a press conference given by Hodgson and Steven Gerrard after the friendly defeat to Chile Friday:

"

Sometimes you feel England live in a sort of Cloud Cuckoo Land. ... Roy Hodgson and Steven Gerrard were still trying to keep the Feelgood Factor going and talking about how well England played against Montenegro and Poland in qualifying for the World Cup.

It was almost as if the result against Chile never happened. I think they call it Blue Sky thinking—as in only concentrate on the positives.

"

What exactly did Howard expect them to say? Break down crying in front of the press? Wail that because they lost to Chile there's no point in carrying on? For a man who is part of an industry that is apparently desperate for England to do well, that's an awfully and needlessly negative attitude to take.

It's destructive, and while Fleet Street's finest are not responsible for the lack of English players able to string three passes together, they undoubtedly contribute to the traditional disappointments of the national team.