LET’S BE HONEST, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ENGLAND TO WIN THE WORLD CUP.

But it’s not going to happen.  Yep.  I’m hitching my colours firmly to someone else, not because I’m not an England fan and not because I like saying “I told you so” to everyone when I’m right and they’re wrong (even though I do enjoy doing that!)

You see Football is a game of narrow margins, it is a game not about the strongest links but about the exploitation of the weakest, and the World Cup is the cruelest chalice of them all where great players such as Cruyff, Zico, Yashin and Platini have all seen their dreams of lifting the greatest trophy on earth crumble to dust.  The World Cup is an incredible spectacle of skill, organisation, patriotism and luck but it is also something that comes around every four years only.  It is special because it is rare, few teams win it but through fair means or foul some teams do.

However one thing that you do need to win the world cup is between 7 or 8 World class players and NO WEAK LINKS.

As we’ve seen from the Champions League teams with weak links tend not to win and the World Cup is an amplification of this 100 fold.  Back in 2002 and again in 2004 it could be argued that England fell into the above illustrious category.  They had a slew of great players all coming together at the same time and while it was easy back then just to accept England not winning (as usual) now, when we look back, it seems hard to understand just HOW they managed not to win anything.

How long ago do these games seem now, how long ago is it since we saw David Beckham;s wonder free kicks, since Joe Cole’s amazing goal against Sweden, Rooney tearing through Croatia like a dog shredding a chew toy and since Owen’s blistering hat-trick against Germany?

One would have thought that this new breadth of English talent that came through in the early 00’s would have spurned the FA on to not just find more of this talent but nurture it so that the great drop-off of talent and ability did not occur as it does do in the English game due to untold distractions such as dames, injuries or laziness. 

So while Trevor and the rest of the head honcho’s at the FA say they are targeting the 2018 and anything now would be a bonus but from what we’ve seen in the astonishing drop-off in quality over the last 8 years I would not expect England to trouble the upper echelons of a major final for another 20 years, with the exceptions of Hart and possibly Barkley, there isn’t anyone from now who could squeeze a place into that amazing squad fro then.

So are we looking back to the dark days of the seventies when the England squad failed even to qualify for international tournaments?  Well, no, I don’t think so, but in spite of two under 17 victories at youth level the lack of opportunities for these players at the highest level has caused no end of problems for the senior squad.

However in spite of this plummeting of standards this will not stop me from watching the world cup when it’s on and wishing Ray and the rest of the squad all the luck in the world

After watching the Netherlands last night, they will need it.