Name the guilty men

If you spend some time out of the country, or reading other 
countries’ sports pages, what you notice when you come back to 
reading ours is that English sports writing is compulsively 
moralistic. Everything is seen as a moral issue. Victory is a triumph 
of character and will; defeat is a failing of character and will. 
This theme is always present in the way people talk about sport, but 
no-one stresses it as remorselessly as we do. Look at the New York 
Times or L’Equipe and you will occasionally encounter the idea that 
one team beat another because they were, you know, better. The main 
reason one football team beats another is because they are better at 
football.

At least, that’s what I usually think. But the England team’s 
performance in this World Cup has been a severe test of my view. It’s 
hard not to see their failure as in some sense a failure of 
character. Richard Williams is very firm-spoken on this point in 
today’s Guardian. He says that England got what they deserved, and the reason Hargreaves—who was born in 
Canada and moved to Germany at 16—was England’s best player is 
because he’s never lived in England.

I find the idea that they’re a bit spoilt hard to dismiss. They look 
and act spoilt. But they don’t look as if they’re not trying, and 
there was nothing fake about how upset they seemed to be on going out.

I know—let’s blame the Swede.

Comments

[Gary Naylor]

You can't rail against the N word on the 28th June and claim England look spoilt on the 3rd of July - both are reductionist views of complex histories and interplays of personalities and cultures. But the Africans underperformed, England lost on penalties, Germany are playing, er... efficiently, and my, don't those Italians defend well.

This World Cup is many things, but as an underlining of national stereotypes through play and results, it is almost 70's Northern Working Men's Club Comic accurate. So much for the melding of styles through transnational coaching and competitions.

[Tom]

I found Williams's theory (that Hargreaves played with more commitment and skill because of his austere German environment) a little pat and unconvincing. After all, in the last five years, Hargreaves has never previously been England's outstanding player.

Surely a more likely reason for Hargreaves's relatively strong performance this time is that, barring the defence, he was the only player who was allowed to play in his most natural position? Hargreaves simply replicated his Bayern Munich role, while everyone else was unhappily improvising.