Who was it that said; "the biggest obstacle to success is the fear of failure"?*
It seems to me that England have recently achieved a pretty remarkable (all time?) record statistically that is now rapidly being thrown away.
Only four competitive games lost in five and a half years.
Top nation in all three international tournament group-qualifying rounds.
No.4 FIFA world ranking.
Making it through to three quarter finals to see victory snatched by a succession of desperate incidents and extreme "bad luck". (Many will have views regarding the quality of referee decisions, uncharacteristic player behaviour and other events maybe?)
During the course of achieving these under-appreciated but none the less best results for decades we have seen lines like "yes they are winning games but…."
I firmly believe that it's the Nations (media?) attitude and demand for absolute perfection that puts so much pressure on our players that they lose that confidence and fluidity that is the difference between winning through to finals and making the stupid mistakes that result in red cards and fumbled opportunities.
Without wishing to diminish our national pride in winning the World Cup in 1966, it may be worth remembering that we only qualified that year by default as host nation and expectations were low which removed much pressure from the team who did such a heroic job against somewhat reduced competition due to the world political climate prevailing at the time. Checking the statistics the win, lose, draw ratio around that time was pretty dire and many of us will recall Sir Alf's unceremonious dismissal after failing to qualify once again?
As long as elements within our xenophobic (?) and muck raking media continue to show such contempt for our best managers and footballers, they may continue to live up to the expectation of failure that is wished upon them?
As a patriotic England fan, I am ashamed of the treatment meted out to Sven-Goran Eriksson, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and others and I am very certain that the chance of victory was severely blighted by the scandalous lack of support and appreciation shown to all the England management and squad who achieved more than in almost any other similar period in our history regardless of the venom and spite that was levelled against them. It is unfortunate but perhaps not surprising that they succumbed to the intolerable pressure when we got so close to the final success that us real fans and they so wholesomely deserved.
Now we see the pressure building on a new England manager and his squad and the current intense pressure and resulting fear of failure will surely also become an insurmountable obstacle to success?
(* Quote paraphrases a comment by Mr Sven-Goran Eriksson who I believe showed great dignity and restraint in the face of the scurrilous treatment that finally drove him to quit)
My comments are of course biased by my "pseudo relationship" to Sven but I am extremely grateful that my opinion seems to be shared by the 1000's of well wishing and totally supportive fans and members of the public who regularly mistake me for my doppelganger and show nothing but appreciation for ("my") his acheivements and regret at ("my") his treatement....