Nothing has changed in 110 years !!

Pundits and commentators can talk forever about what went wrong with the England World Cup effort, or lack of effort. But whether people point to manager, players, the FA, goalmouth technology, team format, golden generations, or whatever else, the fact is that for 110 years nothing much has changed and is not likely to change for another 110 years.

England's World Cup win in 1966 was a blip. England should just hope for another blip. The fact is that when it comes to international football, there is quite a great deal of talking done in England, but nothing ever happens by way of real action.

This goes right back to the early 1900's. The English FA had the chance to organise a world football tournament and to lead the international game. But the FA did not even enter a team in the World Cup until 1950, twenty years after Uruguay became the first World Champions. The FA even refused to send a team to Uruguay in 1980 to compete in Mudialito. This was a tournament organised to celebrate fifty years of the World Cup and was for past World Cup winners. Holland who had not won the World Cup had to substitute for England.

In recent years, England has failed to prepare properly for penalty shoot out competitions, losing all three World Cup penalty shoot out competions it has been involved in. The Germans on the other hand have won all four of theirs. And just as England thought it was catching up with the Germans, it has been revealed that while everyone was complaining about the new World Cup ball, the Germans had been practising with it for six months. But of course, it wasn't really the Germans who knocked England out of the World Cup, it was England's poor performance in the group stage. Or was it the lack of goalmouth technology?

Why do we, or anyone else including Chris Waddle, spend so much time talking and writing about this. Things will not change, and in 2050 it will still be Germany reaching the semi-finals and possibly the final. And England will still be sloping off early.