World Cup Conclusion

So like a toddler becoming bored with one of their birthday presents, the Suarez incident/ban proved a watershed for the England team, directing press scrutiny away from them and onto the Uruguayan. By 27 June, there was not an article on England’s failings in sight, perhaps this newspaper had realised that they had pointed each finger in every way possible.

Chris Waddle, after the Uruguay game, encapsulated for a few brief sentences exactly what I had noticed during this project.

‘It’s not about picking your star players, and he plays for Liverpool, he plays for Man United, it’s about getting a balance of a side which is going to get you a result,’ he added.

‘And we never ever do.

‘The media is to blame as much as anyone else, because when they drop somebody or they play somebody in a different position, we’re on the case straight away.

‘Other countries go “you know what? I’ve got good players but unfortunately so-and-so is going to sit on the bench tonight”, and are we bothered? No.

‘Until we get that way of thinking, how do you win football matches?

‘You start from the back, then you get organised.

‘And if you’ve got two or three creative players, you build a side around certain players.

‘And that gets your side balanced. It’s not about having the best 11 players you can find, and we never ever ever learn.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02191f7

There’s obviously so much more to England’s international problems than simply the media. I cannot stress this enough. I think we have a good group of players but nothing more. The fact that we only beat Norway, ranked 53rd in the world, 1-0 at home yesterday with nowhere near the same amount of scrutiny illustrates this (The Great British Bake Off beat England in the ratings). But the media certainly does not help. If you don’t agree with the points I’ve tried to make during this project then, at the very least, it should be seen as a thorough reference point which tells the story of England’s World Cup in 2014. I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog and of course, it does not end yet, we are now about to embark on our European Qualifying campaign. The team is very much undergoing a transitional phase with a number of changes in personnel. However, I’d imagine the media will remain a constant. We know what expect from them. We’ll see numerous articles now on not only Rooney’s playing position but also his position as captain. I can wait.

@1jacobwalker

Newspaper, 26 June 2014

Newspaper, 26 June 2014

At this point, nobody cared what the score was. We didn’t expect anything. The betting market illustrates this. Perhaps, as much due to Costa Rica’s excellent performances as well as England’s exit, England opened the betting at 2/5, finishing as long as 3/4. Cost Rica were as long as 7/1, going in as short as 15/4.

Don’t let anybody tell you England fans weren’t expecting anything from this World Cup.

Newspaper, 24 June 2014

Newspaper, 21-22 June 2014

A weekend of hindsight. In fact, it goes on well into the week.Whether we agree with them or not, opinions and emotive responses are why we become so absorbed in the game; but it’s much easier sat at your desk, or in the boozer. Having said that, they couldn’t have had anyone more informed or renowned to lead the charge as Brian Glanville.

“Hindsight is always 20/20” Billy Wilder

@1jacobwalker

Newspaper, 20 June 2014

F***. And there we have it, despair. Typical bloody England. We’re all but out.

Gary Lineker @garylineker 20 June

“The whole low expectation thing didn’t help then. Getting knocked out still feels shit!”

An early England exit from a major tournament is a newspaper’s field day. All that time they’ve spent scraping around for stories has now been rewarded. It’s time to write with purpose. In enters our good friend hindsight.

 England should’ve done this, Gerrard’s not good enough, neither is Sterling, neither is Henderson, and especially Hodgson, he’s the worst of them all, he got the formation totally wrong, bloody foreigners know how to do it better than us, we should’ve got Redknapp, Mourinho, anyone.

 They wrote this with a more pressing deadline, just wait until the next edition where they can finger point more thoroughly.

This is probably the pinnacle of individual obsession. Wayne Rooney, portrayed as the squad’s pantomime villain and having scored the goal that the media craved, is no longer the focal point. Of course though, it’s Rooney related.

Imagine taking a picture of your mate’s kid crying and then putting it on Facebook. That is what this is like. Arguably encroaching morality, I’d expect much better from one of the more respectable broadsheet newspapers.

The Sun went with a similar picture. But with this headline:

“Don’t cry, Kai. If Italy beat Costa Rica today… then Suarez and co lose to Italy.. and Daddy scores a couple (or maybe more) against Costa Rica… WE’RE THROUGH!”

Despite the omission of a crass headline, the picture speaks for itself (res ipsa loquitur).

@1jacobwalker

Newspaper, 19 June 2014

Being expectant is a horrible state of mind in the context of football. There is no added bonus to it. Either you get what you believe you are owed, or you are left bitterly disappointed when the England team fails to fulfill their potential. Objectively, expecting an England win against Uruguay is expecting the best possible outcome. Anything less and the expectation has created disappointment.

I think it’s near impossible to pinpoint an authority for the idea that this was a World Cup without expectation, but it was generally accepted as a notion. I suppose it has come from oscillating between hope and despair at the numerous tournaments which have preceded. We England fans are so accustomed to these intense shifts of feelings, there is never usually an in between. We wanted to avoid that this time.

Perhaps, social media played a role – this was after all the first “social media World Cup” – whereby enough users had been tweeting about how little expectation there was, or at least acknowledging its non-existence. However, enough people were using it as a reason to justify why England would do well at this World Cup. The newspapers and media in general, inadvertently, give enough reasons in their reporting for people to slowly accumulate an expectation; whether those people realise it or not.

Examples and acknowledgments of this paradoxical notion of little or no expectation

BBC Sport, Guide to England’s Group D

For once England arrive at a major tournament not weighed down by too much expectation, as the home of football takes the beautiful game to its modern day mecca.

Twitter

Nick Webster @dcfc_flagman Jun 9

“No expectation. No pressure. Just like Derby last season. Got a feeling we will beat Italy and this will be a good World Cup for England”.

Dominic James Lau @Dom_Lau Jun 14

“This years @England squad have flair, speed, youth & no burdens of expectation. Italy… should be very worried! #WorldCup”

David Baddiel @baddiel Jun 14

“Feel the ‘no expectation this time’ about England has now become an expectation that we will do well ‘cos there’s no expectation”.

According to Bet365, England opened the betting at 2/1, but ended it at 19/20. Uruguay opened at 69/50, closed at 29/10. England expects. Pressure is heaped. Gerrard dares not lose. This is the side that got beat by those makeweights, we can do this.

Newspaper, 17 June 2014

I’m fully aware of how boring repetition is. Thus, I don’t want to repeat myself. But there’s not much else you can say when your subject matter is the exact same as before. So I will leave you with a quote from one of my favourite journalists and ask yourself, is this good journalism?

“Away from the great events, our most frequent assignment is to write about the trivial parts of sport: to find from them some kind of wisdom, some kind of meaning. We are not to pretend that small things are – even in sporting terms – great things. To pretend that small events have a major sporting importance when they clearly have no such thing is a trick that readers soon weary of. No: what we have to do is take the stuff of everyday sporting life, and, without pretending that it is something which it is not, turn it into a piece of writing that means something, at least for the day in which it was written. We have to take the stuff of everyday life and find the epic that lies within”.

Simon Barnes The Meaning of Sport (2007)

@1jacobwalker

Newspaper, 13 June 2014

The newspaper the day before the first England match. The back page leads with a story on Cesc Fabregas moving to Chelsea. Perhaps, impliedly accepting that there is nothing to report from the England camp. However, they have a 16 page World Cup pull out to fill. Cue a series of articles devoid of substance, typically emphasising just how prepared England really are, with particular reference to the extreme Brazilian temperatures and their forthcoming opponents.

The announcement of the 23 man squad is a big day. It is always subject to debate, simply because, there is such a large pool of players to choose from (irrespective of your opinion of whether England actually produce enough). We all obsess with who should make the squad and then, accordingly, thoroughly scrutinise it. However, when the squad was announced on the 2nd of June, it was generally well received. It was youthful, exciting and energetic. The squad contained a vast amount of untried and inexperienced internationals. Luke Shaw, Ross Barkley, Adam Lallana and Raheem Sterling had 9 caps between them. With an increasing amount of options available, it led to individual obsession with certain players in certain positions. It was Rooney in yesterday’s edition; Barkley, Welbeck or Sterling in this one. It’s easy to forget the importance of collectivism and obsess with individuals. Didier Deschamps omitted Samir Nasri from his French squad and Jurgen Klinsmann omitted Landon Donovan from his American squad. The point is, they did what they felt was best for the team dynamic. Obsessing with individuals does nothing but add more pressure to those individuals. Only those in the camp will know which players complement each other, and whether they have the requisite grasp of the tactical system being implemented.

As we shall see, newspaper articles obsess throughout the World Cup with individual performances, both domestically and internationally, which really have little purpose except for filling columns. For the players, it merely adds to the undue pressure and expectation. It’s frivolous and trivial, but you never know, we might have a chance.