The morning after the night before. I'm still seething at what I watched last night. A team full of Englishmen with nothing to prove. Standing and pouting at each other and getting a lesson in desire from Algeria covered in all its excruciating frustration by ITV. Meaning that alongside what was a pitiful display I had to endure an endless series of adverts featuring the players I had so wanted to believe in. In the adverts they seemed proud to play for England, passionate, creative. That football was the single most important thing in their lives.
Last night 11 men walked back into that changing room and can any of them have truly said they left everything they had on the pitch? They told us that even below par they should beat Algeria. That they were hungry. Those 11 shirts contained the dreams of every boy who grew up in this country dreaming of playing in the World Cup. The dreams of people who saved and bartered for tickets and made ends meet so they could see their heroes play in the flesh and represent us all. This was our Disneyworld and it was like going to Disneyworld and watching Mickey Mouse drunkenly throwing up on Donald Duck. They told us that this was Algeria's World Cup Final. Sadly it seemed that they had played their World Cup Finals in the adverts they are so lucratively rewarded for. In the self indulgent pieces to camera they recorded showing how cool and human they are and how much this supposedly means to them. Then a limp display. More sulking and back to their 5 star hotels.
If playing for England isn't a privilege then don't do it. If you can't remember the dreams you had playing in the playground or the local field then stay at home. Enjoy your summers in your expensive homes. Do your photoshoots for Hello! magazine. Get drunk and have your antics reported in the papers. Cheat on your wives and girlfriends. Yesterday - Algeria can be rightfully proud of the men who walked out on that pitch to represent them. England, sadly, cannot say the same thing.
Maybe the pressure of a nation's expectations was too much for them. Maybe England will do what they have done so many World Cups before and discover that spark and find redemption. I would rather we went out trying to play. Contesting every ball. United by our nationality. Remembering what it's like to be a child playing for the simple pleasure of it. After all it's just a game and should be about bringing joy.
You told us that this was Algeria's World Cup final. Well next Wednesday your World Cup Final is against Slovenia. You still have a chance to make your nation believe again. To rediscover why you play football. To convince us that you aren't only in it for the money and sense of privilege it gives you. If you don't want to play then I, and millions of other Englishmen, would rather you just got on a plane home now and went back to recording your adverts and to your lives of excess. If you cannot step on that pitch and give it your best try (even if you lose trying) then you are no longer worth the hope I have invested in you. Maybe a future generation of footballers might come to represent something I can believe in again.
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