England’s stars will be World Cup zeroes, not heroes
ENGLAND are through to the World Cup in Russia next year, but what have we really got to celebrate? Of their opposition in the qualification round, Slovenia were little more than a Championship team and Lithuania have never played in any major finals, so what chance would they have against our star-studded, £100,000-aweek footballers? And Lithuania’s national game is basketball. Harry Kane has been declared a hero for scoring a penalty. I don’t think you can be called a sporting hero unless your team wins by 5-0. The problem is that the England players just aren’t good enough. Gareth Southgate says we have a brilliant crop of youngsters coming through and he’s optimistic for the future. But I remember the so-called Golden Generation of the Nevilles, Beckham, Lampard, Scholes, Gerrard, Cole, Ferdinand and Terry. Was that England team much better than today’s and what did they achieve for their country? Sky Sports and Match Of The Day proclaim the Premier League to be the best in the world — though for me, it’s the Spanish La Liga — but it’s the foreign players, not the English, who are the real stars. Spurs apart, how many English players are in the top teams? It’s obvious that the current England team will not perform well in Russia, so instead why not take England’s Under-20s World Cup winners plus the best players from the current team? This would be a great way to groom a team for the Euros in 2020. It would be good to see a young England team that is vibrant and inventive, rather than the sterile play of pass, pass, pass and we’re still in our own half. A few years ago, Germany and Spain brought their young teams through as a group and look where they ended up. We are not going to win in Russia, so what have we got to lose?
M. CAINE, Coventry.