England win but the boos ring out again

England picked up their expected three points last night against Andorra. It wasn’t pretty and the England fans, as has become the norm, booed the side from the field at half-time with the score standing at 0-0. It was by no means a good performance by England but the job was done and we should all move on.

Andorra knew they had no chance of winning the game and never really tried to. They sat with all of their players behind the ball and made things as hard for England to break them down as they possibly could. The fact that England were so clueless as to how to break them down was disappointing, but in the end, they got the required job done.

It wasn’t the performance on the field that upset me about England yesterday, it was the undercurrent of negativity coming from the players within the camp. From a group of, let’s face it, over paid, over pampered, over hyped, but talented and fortunate young men, it was very sad to hear them all talking about their lack of confidence.

Prior to last night’s game, England captain John Terry actually said that the England players were under-performing because of that lack of confidence.

He said, “There’s a fear of failure, speaking honestly. It’s been like that for the last couple of years. I don’t think we will be able to go out there and completely change it overnight. At club level, the lads feel free and can express themselves.”

He went on to say, “When you come away with your country and look around the dressing room and see the players you’re going to be playing with, it should be the best thing. The confidence should be there. It should be the best thing, but at the minute things just aren’t right. As captain I do take a lot of pride when the team play and when the fans boo us off the pitch it really hurts deep inside. As the game went on against Andorra last time, the booing got worse and it made us go into our shells even more.”

Terry was expecting another frustrating game against Andorra last night and was hopeful that the fans would show more patience with them.

“We need them behind us, whether it be 30 or 40 minutes at 0-0 – they need to stick with us. We’ll learn from last time. In the build-up to last time, it was all about whether we would win 4-0 or 5-0, whether it would be six or seven. We all expect us to win but we also know it’s going to be difficult. They’ll come out and try to make it very physical again for us, so we may need an early goal to knock them back a little bit and force them out because they literally play with 10 men behind the ball.”

As it turned out, Terry’s prediction about the game was pretty accurate and the fans did turn on the players again. He asked for patience but why should he expect it?

The fans who travel to support the team all over the world spend a fortune doing so and have a right to expect to see some passion, pride and some decent football. The players are paid more for a game than most of the fans are all year. Fans have every right to voice their opinion if they feel they are not getting value for money. Players need to be very careful not to suggest otherwise.

What is it with the low confidence thing? It seems to be the standard message being routinely trotted out by England players in their interviews. After the game last night, two-goal hero Joe Cole said, “They got 10 men behind the ball and it was a sticky pitch. It was our first qualifier and our confidence was low.”

So, have the players got together and decided that they need to stop the fans getting at them? Maybe they think that the fans will think they’d better not express an opinion about the players because they are feeling a little bit low at the moment. Maybe the players think they might get the fans to think it is their fault that the team aren’t doing so well!

However hard they try, I don’t think the players will get too many of the fans to feel sorry for them!

Another thing that upset me was the fact that Fabio Capello felt the need to say that he wanted his players to be proud of playing for their country.

He spoke out after Jamie Carragher, not bitter at his lack of opportunities with England of course, said that he always hurt more when on the losing side with Liverpool than he did with England.

Capello stated: “I remember my country and in other countries I’ve managed, like Spain also, that all the players like to play with their national team. My message is, if you don’t have the heart for the national team ‘stay at home’. The players here have the heart for the national team. The players here have to sacrifice something to be proud to be here. That’s very important. They have to be proud to be here. We are now into competitive matches and now we need to play hard, to play for the England shirt, and that’s very important but we also have to play for the result.”

I don’t disagree with anything that Capello said. I just think it is a terrible shame that he felt that he needed to say it.