England. Why do we always have to qualify?

I went to see a production of the RSC’s Measure for Measure in Stratford last night. The first thing I did at the end of the performance was turn my phone back on and look up the England result.

I’m sure football fans up and down the country will recognise this behaviour trait and around the world; after all, this is a World Cup qualifier we are talking about…

By the time I had got home, most of the media reports were featuring not the England players’ performances as part of a winning machine, rather the England manager’s relationship with the fans.

To make a story now out of ‘silence’ is desperate and certainly not news. My club team has one of the loudest fanbases in the country. Visiting some grounds is less about ‘football in a library’ than football in a mausoleum.

Not only that – and with huge disrespect to those players who were so proud to have been given their opportunity – reporters focused on the ‘big personalities’ who were missing.

The first European country to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Six qualifying wins out of six, with 18 goals scored and not one conceded. Now unbeaten in 37 World Cup qualifying matches – second on the all-time UEFA list.

Not really good enough, is it? Besides, the quality of the opposition was ‘poor.’

We’ve qualified – again – and yet some of the worthies always feel the need to qualify any football successes that we do achieve, don’t they? It’s as if actual success is far less important than some kind of faux Corinthian ideal of what to compete should be all about.

Are we operating on such a higher level that success metrics don’t really matter? Well, I for one do not wish to remain living in an imperial age. I want to compete with the best at club and international level, and win every game.

I’m currently researching the next book in my History of Football series, which will tell the World Cup story. It makes for interesting reading (hopefully the book will, too!)

After taking a very public stand on ‘broken time’ payments, when international football competition was still the preserve of the Olympic movement, the FA resigned from FIFA in 1928 and missed out on the first three World Cup tournaments.

In confirming Uruguay as the first World Cup host nation in 1930, FIFA insisted that they bear all the costs and associated risks, but not even a direct appeal to the FA from the Uruguayan Football Association could make them change their minds about not travelling to South America.

In Victorian England and certainly up until WWI, it had been hoped that the FA would be in the vanguard of football’s development around the world. These opportunities were politely refused. In 1950, we deigned to participate in a World Cup for the first time, only to be taught a lesson by those ‘upstarts’ from North America.

Unfinished business there next summer then…

And so, back to Thomas Tuchel. He might be good enough, and his team are certainly showing the kind of promise that needs to be dealt with by increased expectation – by ramping up the pressure until they crack, as has been the case since 1966 when we last beat the best teams in the world. Ah, but the linesman was from Russia…

After all, it’s not the achievement that counts, is it? It never has been for the few.

To borrow from Claudio's speech from last night’s play, “Ay, but to qualify, and go we know not where...”
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Well, we do know where we’re going now, and when. We might even win the World Cup again next year. Will that be good enough, though? I doubt it.

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