England's no-show in Africa

If there is one thing you can't accuse the English national football team of it is a lack of consistency.

Last Sunday they bowed out of the World Cup, making it the 22 major football tournaments in a row they have failed to win.

Unlike usual, however, their departure was not down to bad luck, random handballs or penalties. No, this time England travelled to the world's biggest sporting event but entirely failed to show up.

After 44 years of trying, the Three Lions finally achieved something that always seemed unlikely to happen - they turned into mice. From start to finish in this tournament, England lacked the heart, passion and desire that has always been their hallmark and often their saving grace.

And so, having sunk to a new low, the inquest has begun.

This latest failure, coming on the back of so many others, has prompted an unbearable frenzy of excuse-making and finger-pointing. It happens pretty much every two years, but this time the media and experts have gone into overdrive.

So far, the reasons for England's latest disaster have ranged from too many foreigners to not enough overseas experience, and everything in between. The only thing I haven't heard blamed is the Labour Party, although it's only a matter of time before it becomes Gordon Brown's fault.

Everybody and his dog is convinced they know why the English national team crumbled despite the fact that it was these very same people who, a month ago, all thought England would be lifting the trophy next Sunday.

However, by far the most ludicrous of excuses I have heard so far is from the England manager himself. According to Fabio Capello, the players were "very tired", and that's why things went so disastrously wrong.

I fully understand Capello's reasoning. I mean, playing snooker, swimming and enjoying the occasional round of golf in five-star luxury must be very draining. When you throw in watching films and spending a couple of hours a day on your Playstation it must be truly knackering. The poor lads obviously needed a rest from all that resting.

Seriously though, this 'tired' excuse doesn't cut any ice with me whatsoever. Yes, English teams play a lot of games in the season, possibly a few more than they should.

But surely that tiredness should also apply to all the other Premier League players who were, or still are, at the World Cup. The England squad only accounted for 23 of the 118 Premier League players in South Africa.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez haven't seemed lethargic or running on empty for Argentina. And Nigel De Jong, Dirk Kuyt, Kevin Prince Boateng, Aaron Mokoena, Steven Pienaar, Tim Cahill, Brett Emerton, Carlos Vela, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Nemanja Vidic and Martin Skrtel have all looked fit as fiddles.

And that's just to mention a few of the more widely known Premiership stars.

"Ah yes, but what about the Carling Cup? Isn't that a bit extra?" some may cry. Well, maybe it is. But let's not forget that the top Premier League teams rarely play their first teams in the Carling Cup, and instead use it as a good excuse to give the reserves a run out. Abolishing it would simply mean the back-up teams don't get any proper competitive action. And, as many of those kids are English, that's not going to help the England team is it?

And let's also not forget about rotation. How often do top players get dropped for less important matches because they are being saved for bigger ones?

Clubs as a whole may play a lot of football, but that doesn't automatically mean the players are.

Let's take a few examples to prove the point, shall we? Gareth Barry played a total of 51 games for club and country last season and came on as a substitute once. Wayne Rooney played 50 games plus two as a sub. Both of those players failed to shine in South Africa.

Now let's look at two other players. Germany's Bastian Schweinsteiger, who has been splendid so far, played 57 games last season. David Villa, who is a serious contender for the golden boot and has looked every inch the best striker in the world, played 48 games and came on from the bench five times.

More than anything else, that tells me the 'tired' excuse is just that. Tired. And to be honest it reeks of a manager clutching at straws to try and protect his and his players' reputations.

So if that isn't the reason for England's failure, then what is? Well, if you are going to have an inquest into the shambles in Africa, the finger of blame needs pointing in two directions alone.

Firstly, the players' attitude.

Twenty years ago, playing for your country was the very pinnacle of your career. It was the ultimate honour, and the lad who took to the pitch wearing the Three Lions would have gladly died for the cause.

For the current crop, with their millionaire lifestyles, baby Bentleys and trophy wives, playing for their country comes across as little more than an irritant. Something they do purely to raise their profile and, therefore, their earning power.

It would be unfair to tarnish all the current squad with the same brush. Players like Steven Gerrard still give their all when they pull on the shirt. But the same cannot be said of all of them.

Too many of the squad were simply going through the motions, something that was evidenced by the way they were caught on camera laughing and joking just a couple of hours after the Germany match, while back home young boys and grown men were shedding tears.

For this type of player, getting knocked out of the World Cup is nothing more than a hiccup in a career that will earn them riches beyond our wildest dreams. They lose, they fly home, and then jet off for a 'well-earned' break on some Caribbean island. Life - fantastically comfortable and privileged - goes on.

Can you imagine any of the current crop doing a Gazza on the pitch and crying because they have been booked? Can you imagine them screaming as though they were in Psycho when they score a penalty? They turned up for this tournament lacking the passion and desire, and until that trend is reversed England will not be winning anything.

The second reason for England's poor showing, and possibly the more pertinent of the two, was the manager.

Capello was supposed to be the man who finally knocked England's golden generation into shape. The Italian disciplinarian whose iron fist and no-nonsense style would put the players in their place.

He was supposed to be the tactical genius that England desperately needed, the man who could finally add intelligence to a team that had previously relied on energy and enthusiasm.

But it backfired horribly, on several different levels.

The tactical genius turned out to be a stubborn old man who refused to budge from a rigid 4-4-2 formation. The sort of man who wouldn't change a burnt-out light bulb on the basis that it worked well in the past. While England were crying out for 4-5-1, he still stuck with a formation that went out of international fashion a decade ago.

On top of that, his player selection ranged between questionable and ludicrous. Robert Green should never have played in goal. Joe Cole should have been on the pitch throughout. Matthew Upson got picked when he has the speed and agility of a rusty bulldozer. And the likes of Adam Johnson and Theo Walcott, game-changing players, never even made it to South Africa.

The final nail in that particular section of his coffin was bringing on Emile Heskey when England needed three goals against Germany. Admittedly, the game was already up, but that is not the move of a man with an alternative plan. He might as well have put Green up front and see if he could do as much damage in the opponent's penalty box as his own.

But for me, Capello's biggest crime was his man management skills. I know I blamed the players for lacking passion earlier, but ensuring the passion is there is also partly down to the manager.

He ran a strict camp which, instead of getting the players focused and mentally prepared, seemed to suck the final bits of enthusiasm out of them.

Instead of taking their existing good points - energy and spirit - and adding to them, by trying to impose his will on the players he removed those positives, and what we were left with was an empty shell of an England team.

So where does the FA go from here?

In the long term, things can be done to help deepen the pool of talent available to the England manager. Things like introducing quotas on the number of foreign players allowed at Premiership clubs and improving the schooling system.

In the short term, however, the onus falls on Capello to learn from his mistakes. Since he has been allowed to continue in the job, he has to rebuild the team from scratch.

And I don't mean a little bit of pruning. I mean wholesale cuts. David James, John Terry, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Gareth Barry and Emile Heskey have had their time. We need new blood and we need it now.

The youngsters who have not yet been totally polluted by the money, fame and trappings of football need to be given the chance to show how it should be done.

It might mean a few more years of failure while they mature. But England fans are used to that anyway. And at least this way there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com