Would you rather your club or country win silverware?

The club versus country debate is one that many have on a long drunken night down the pub, especially during major international tournaments. The question is would you rather have your club win silverware or your country? Everybody has an opinion on the big question.

England and Everton supporter

Some might say as an Everton and England supporter, I am a glutton for punishment. Unfortunately, I had no choice in the matter. I was born in England to a family of Blues, with only my grandfather a supporter of the club from across Stanley Park.

One of my friends who supports a slightly more successful club and is also not English recently stated that I have no worries over either of my teams winning a trophy anytime soon anyway, so I shouldn’t worry about such trivial matters. I just called him a glory hunting b@stard and we got on with our lives.

However, it is a difficult question to answer. Everton winning a trophy would make many in my city happy, unlike when Liverpool wins a trophy, which seems to make half the country annoyed.

England winning the World Cup would lift spirits

England are of course in the World Cup last 16, where they will face Colombia on Tuesday night for the chance to make it into the quarter-finals of the World Cup. The Three Lions are now odds of 15/2 to win the World Cup in Russia, which makes them fourth favourites to lift the trophy.

In these rather strange times for England, Brexit and all the other guff that goes with it, lifting the World Cup would lift spirits immensely among English people, although it may hit some people from Scotland, Wales and Ireland hard.

England fans have had to put up with so many rubbish teams and hard luck stories at major tournaments that surely we deserve to win a tournament soon. I know we do not have a god given right to win competitions and we have not been a great team for a long time, but teams with far lesser talent have won competitions, arguably just not the World Cup.

Is there a divide in England?

There seems to be a perception that there is a north-south divide when it comes to the national team. Some cynics believe that because the team is based in London that the team belongs to the south.

However, considering a number of recent England captains have been from Liverpool that seems to kill that argument off completely. The England captain this time around is Harry Kane, who is from London,

The current squad is high on players from the north, though. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jesse Lingard, Harry Maguire, Danny Rose, Kyle Walker, Phil Jones, Jordan Pickford, Marcus Rashford and John Stones were all born in Northern cities or towns.

Many people from my home city Liverpool feel disconnected from the England team, not particularly because of football, more because central government has abandoned the city at various points in its existence, but that is a rant for a different day and website!

Most of my fellow Scousers (People from Liverpool) would be happy for England to win the World Cup. However, they may not be as enthused by the team as people from other parts of the country.

The majority of fans I have spoken to would prefer their club to win silverware, than for England to win the World Cup. As it is an interesting topic, I would just like to gauge are reader’s opinion on it.

Would you rather your club or country win silverware?