The England Effect; English Football Teams' History Of Failure.

I would call myself an objectivist, a realist, one in tune with the pigments of reality. I have a finger on the pulse of society. Yet, on Wednesday, I realised that for football it’s different. Once the referee's whistle blows objectivity departs. I become a fan, a drone, a mindless patron of shirt and ball. Realism...... I don’t know the word.

At the start of this season my team, Leicester City, were cemented at the foot of the championship table, yet I still expected promotion. We went to Portsmouth, a team with possibly the best starting 11 in the league, went a goal and a man down after 20 minutes and I expected us to win.

Such blind faith is not logical. Such unrealistic expectation cannot be justified. It is what makes the football fan the football fan, a united force bound together through thick and thin. Us against them.

For the national team though, the goalposts change. The fan base is no longer secular or regional. ‘The enemy’ becomes a nation—a people place and ideology we cannot relate to. Our best versus their best. National pride is on the line. With a nation roaring at its back our 11 lions, the best the nation has to offer, take to the field.

The story from here on in usually plays out in an all too depressingly similar vein.

When it comes to the crunch, the time to stand up and be counted; we fall short. Victims of unrealised potential, the expectations, hopes and dreams of a nation shelved to be rekindled another year. This year is always "our year," and yet it never is. 45 years is an awfully long wait.

And as I watched the French farce unfurling before my eyes I realised the problem. However hard to stomach it may be, it is us, the fans and the media, who erect the platform for the players to fail. We who build them up so they have further to fall.

I understand the finer nuances of "pressure." Throughout my school years I was the best athlete in my school. I was "the one to beat," a rabbit hunted by the greyhounds at my back. In such a situation one can only fail or achieve, never exceed. This is pressure. The idea that nothing but victory will suffice.

My reputation, however, unlike the England football teams was justified. I WAS the best. They, quite conclusively, ARE NOT. In such a situation you cannot fail to fail.

Going into the last World Cup we were fourth favourites. Fourth. Spain, the European champions; a team boasting a mercurially talented pool of players first. Brazil, 5 times World Cup winners and South American region qualification Champions second. Holland, a team that had won every qualification game, scoring the most amount of goals in qualification third. And England fourth.

A team for whom anything less than a semi-final (which incidentally we have only reached once in any international competition in the last 45 years) would be a disappointment. Why? Exactly.

I didn't know betting cycles ran 45 years overdue.

You could argue that England did well in qualification. They did beat Croatia, a team who had performed very well in the European Championships home and away, but this very same Croatia failed to qualify for the World Cup.

It would also be a fair point to state that England’s odds, no matter who we are playing are over-inflated because we are English, live in England and therefore bet patriotically. The players though, don’t know this. They see odds, advertising campaigns, promotions heralding the new breed, how this is our time. The collective hearts of 50 million people beating in the chest of 11 men, that is pressure.

To be honest, I am as guilty as the next man, therefore I am in no position to chastise such patriotic optimism. The problem of buckling under national pressure, however, appears fundamentally ingrained in the psyche of the English football player.

The Germans are big game players. Miroslav Klose, a player who was not even Bayern Munich’s first choice striker for the 09/10 season, a player written off as "past his peak" scored four in the tournament, in four games (he scored four in the entire Bundesliga season).

If it wasn't for injury and suspension Klose would have, in all likelihood, become the World Cup's all-time leading goal scorer. This is a big game player. A man who, when the chips are down, stands up proudly and performs. For some reason, the German national team is full of big game players.

The pressure on the German players is no less than that we heap upon our own men, yet where they respond, we fall down.

I’ll use Tim Lampard as an example, and no I don’t mean Frank. The Frank Lampard of Chelsea fame is a giant, a 20 goal a season midfielder who leaves premier league defences yearning for the final whistle. The impostor that wears the Lampard shirt for England is not this man, how can he be?

The difference in class, ability, accuracy, strength, work rate and seemingly every other facet of the Chelsea Lampard appears warped, diluted. Once he pulls on the shirt of the Three lions Lampard is no longer the world class player we know he can be, and that hurts.

The case of Lampard is by no means an isolated incident. Barry, Milner, Rooney, Bent, Ferdinand, Carrick, even Gerrard; Tyrants, of the premier league, perpetual bottlers on the biggest stage of them all.

If results were simply based on ability England would have won the World Cup since 66, no doubt. If results were simply based on ability, public and media hype would be warranted, welcomed and embraced by our all-conquering heroes. Yet here we are, 45 years and counting.

Something, no doubt about it, needs to change. Capello, no matter how chastised and seemingly culpable he may appear, to me isn't the crux of the issue (although, up until this point he was exacerbating the problem by his seemingly entrenched lack of squad rotation).

The precedent has been set by other nations, the Hollands, Spains, Brazils and Germanys of this world: Youth is the future.

Amidst the shambles of Wembley on Wednesday, Capello showed us a glimpse of the future—a situation in which players can learn to thrive under the pressure cauldron of public expectation from a young age. A situation in which no player's position in the team is set in stone. 11 English men showcasing the talents of the premier league on the biggest stages of them all. Competing and succeeding, together as one. One day.

For the moment though, we need to realise a rather sobering reality. The English national team is, at present, one seemingly castrated by mediocrity.

It will not always thus, one day we will rise again. The Englishman’s day in the sun will dawn afresh. Today, just isn't that day. Ours is not a team of Premier League performers, it is a team of English performers. One day we will have a team that justifies its ability and the glory days will return.

We just need to be patient, to hope, not expect and then the glory will be all the sweeter. For the moment we just need to understand that whilst the lion may be the king of the animal kingdom, the three lions are not yet the kings of football.