The pretenders knocking Raheem prove we’re just a nation full of illiterates
THREE days on from a glorious Saturday in Samara and I’m still scratching my head.
I still can’t work out how Raheem Sterling came away with the lowest mark of any England star in the BBC’s public-vote player ratings. By some distance, too. Those who helped him end up with a rating of just 5.23 out of 10 must surely have been watching a different game.
The vote adds to my suspicion that we’re not the football-savvy nation we pretend to be.
Instead, we’re a nation of football illiterates – people who can’t read the game and its nuances.
We have umpteen divisions of professional and nonLeague football and ought to understand it as well as anyone
Yet we don’t watch the game in context any more. We either hype up players as the best this, that or the other on the planet or deride them as the worst. I really don’t know what it is that makes us feel the need to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the same myself but I just don’t see it from other countries. Look at Germany. After they won the last World Cup they simply added it to their list of achievements rather than ranking it among them. We on the other hand like to see things as hot or cold.
Should we go on to win the tournament, Harry Maguire is going to be the next Bobby Moore, Harry Kane is going to be the next Geoff Hurst, and so on. What we should be saying is: ‘Actually, neither Maguire nor Kane are that good yet but they have won the same trophy.’
Against Sweden the names of those who played well roll off the tongue. Jordan Pickford, Kieran Trippier and Maguire were simply the three best players on the pitch.
Tottenham duo Kane and Dele Alli (above) were badly off the boil.
Even if you’d never seen a football match before you’d have looked at Alli and thought ‘That guy there hasn’t been so good today.’
Yet Sterling was voted the worst England player out there. If you were him you’d be well within your rights to think ‘Hold on, this is all wrong.’
In the past we have wondered why some players have felt bitter about playing for England, why they haven’t wanted to play, or why they have said there is too much pressure whenever they have pulled on a Three Lions shirt. Well, the treatment of Sterling is a clue.
So if we can do one thing for the rest of this competition, wherever it takes us, can we at least put games, achievements and performances into context?
I’m not talking about the celebrities and politicians who have jumped on the bandwagon for a few more Twitter followers – they can get lost because sooner rather than later they will have moved on and will be musing about Love Island.
I’m talking about those who at least pretend to know what they’re talking about — pundits, writers and fans — because for Sterling to finish bottom was nothing short of embarrassing.