World Cup 2018: England

Why you've got to rule out England winning next summer's 2018 World Cup

Source from Bleacher Report Football Instagram

As according to Oddshark, the England national football team are in the top 8 favourites to win the world cup in 2018.

Amongst these favourites are Germany, Brazil, France, Belgium and rather surprisingly not Chile; a team that has made it to 3 international finals in each of the last 3 years.

And the question therefore is raised, how is England continuously ranked amongst such teams to be backed to win major tournaments?

The senior men's England team hasn't won a major trophy since winning the World Cup as the host nation in 1966 and hasn't so much as made a semi-final of any tournament since (World Cup) 1990.

So honestly how does one seriously put England on this list?
For the past 10 years' worth of major international tournaments, It is yet to be seen, even one group stage where England played even convincingly well let alone dominate their opponents.

                         Telegraph.co.uk

And as many Three Lions fans will know all too well, if the team even advances from the group, they still regularly end up getting knocked out by quite literally, ANY team they face in the K.O. round. As especially highlighted in the crumbling performance against less-fancied side Iceland, in last summer's European Championship last-16 round.

What tends to be the case with England, is the promising expectations going into a major tournament through the fantastic club form of a select few English players of the previous season coupled with the near-unbeatable record enjoyed in qualifying for these tournaments. But yet similar form never seems to be replicated on the grand stage when it is needed the most.

Perhaps in all fairness I am being cynical and that you can't simply state that the performances of past squads with different players is to be the definite outcome of a new, fresher team.
But that is often what is told amongst ourselves, as we watch with hands on our faces, recent history repeat itself.

At the end of the day, yes: the team does have the calibre of young players like Harry Kane who was the top scorer with 29 goals in arguably the most competitive and physically demanding league professional football has to offer. Yes: the team does have Dele Alli, only aged 20, who has been internationally renowned for his breakout debut season in top flight football over a year ago with Spurs and was without much doubt the most deserving player to win the PFA Young Player of the Year. Another young player you can mention in the same breath would be Sterling, of whom also has the genuine potential to maybe become a world class player, particularly under the game's best manager Pep Guerdiola.

But quite simply, having players with quality or the potential to be quality is only one ingredient for a cup winning team: at club or international level.

Players also really need the experience of playing in the latter stages of international tournaments with their teammates. Such experience is what Germany, for example have in abundance. Their past 5 tournaments, stretching back from 2008, have seen the team make it to the semi-final stage for every major international tournament they've played in. The Confederations Cup semi-final they reached just last June would be their 6th consecutive semi-final of an international tournament, with Germany winning 3 of those semi finals (2008 Euros vs Turkey, 2014 World Cup vs Brazil, Confederations Cup 2017 vs Mexico).

                                           Source from Bleacher Report Football Instagram

In addition to this, Germany notably left much of their usual star players from the Confederations Cup squad, such as Thomas Muller, Manuel Neur, Toni Kroos, Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng and others too.

And still won.

To be very honest, the idea of say, England replacing Germany in this tournament and entering without a handful of their key players; would they still go on to win? Not in this reality. I couldn't entertain that idea at all. But the England and Germany teams are not of the same calibre right now and it actually isn't all that fair to compare them and their credentials for next summer's World Cup.

But nonetheless, no team should go into a tournament just wanting to make up the numbers. Certainly not England. This England team, although technically they are yet to secure qualification for the tournament as of yet; should be aiming to lift the trophy at the end. After last summer's somewhat embarrassing exit to Iceland in the Euros held in France, the team would be desperate to make amends as soon as possible. There should be a hunger, a desire to prove the nay-sayers (like myself) wrong.

But expectations should not be too high going into this one, because as the saying goes: The bigger they are, the harder they fall.