Club Over Country: Is Jamie Carragher Wrong?

Three things I associate with the England national football team: boredom, frustration, and an insatiable desire to watch every minute. I am happy to say that I am an England supporter (in the dictionary sense of the word! See Alex Diamond's article on England and the media) but I do not ever feel the same passionate intensity that I get when watching any Arsenal versus Manchester United match.

I never feel angry or letdown by the national side; I often let my temper flare when watching Arsenal. This attitude isn’t unusual; It is instinctive and Jamie Carragher who shares a similar viewpoint on the club versus country debate has said, "If people want to condemn me and say I'm unpatriotic, so be it."

He came in for much criticism when he announced his international retirement last year and was under more critical pressure last week when he was quoted in his biography as saying "I confess: defeats wearing an England shirt never hurt me in the same way as losing with my club." The argument is that to be picked, as one of the top 11 or 22 players in your country is the highest honour. It makes sense but doesn't quite reflect the reality.

Liverpool is a club that Carragher has put his body on the line for and his heart and soul into on a full-time basis since he was sixteen years old. His description of an England cap as "an extra honour", not as the pinnacle of achievement, not what he has put all that effort into his club football for, shows that his critics are missing a trick.

What Carragher implies is that the sense of pride at playing for England is more remote and intangible than the close, community spirit of the Anfield faithful. He is one of them; he grew up less than four and a half miles away from the stadium. He belongs in a way that he never has with England but this is really a moot point.

I think that, like a fan, Carragher cannot feel the passion in a pointless qualifying match against a minnow nation. I can hardly get excited until the knockout stages of the major tournaments. Carragher has rarely played in an important competitive match for England and this may go some way to explaining his comment that "Losing felt like a disappointment rather than a calamity."

We suspect that a large number of his fellow England colleagues have a similar attitude but Carragher is the only one to voice it, for better or worse. Top-class professionals such as Lampard and Gerrard have often been criticised for being anonymous for England. There is, however, an explanation.

The relentless intensity of the Premier League is enough to keep any professional's blood rushing. Year-in, year-out playing for the top honour and always looking towards the final goal. Imagine the momentum that would be cut from the league if relegation and promotion were scrapped and we were subjected to a year-long qualifying phase against teams as illustrious as Torquay and Scunthorpe. You have to turn up, you have to win, but it is just bloody boring.

Every week in the Premier League you are facing another challenge another game that gets you that much closer to (or further away from) your yearly ambition. The highs and lows of every week are enough to keep a whole country on its toes. The bi-yearly disappointment of the national team pales in comparison.

We can dream with our clubs, we have three to four competitions to prove our mettle and it seems the national team is just there to bring us back down to earth. So for a player so closely resembling an ordinary fan, who can blame Carragher for telling England to leave him out of it so that he can give his all for Liverpool.

Arsene Wenger recently waded in to the debate by pointing out "In club football, you get to put the best players in the world together - that is justice." To stray in to the political here, the notion of nationality mattering more than skill in football is a little pathetic.

I do enjoy seeing British players coming up and wish that facilities in this country were better able to encourage their development but more important to me is great football played by great players.

I would be over the moon for England to win a major tournament. It would help me justify hours of wasted time, watching crap, lifeless games that build up at a snail's pace to a major let-down but for me, Jamie and Arsene club football is where you get the real deal.