God Save the Queen...and English Football

Sorry, England. Mighty David Beckham has struck out.

As surely many of you are unaware, this past weekend England met its ultimate failure – failure to qualify for the European 2008 championship. England went into this past Wednesday’s home match against Croatia needing only a draw to punch their ticket to Austria/Switzerland 2008. Somewhere along the way, Croatia decided to show up and make a mess of things.

England fell behind quickly, facing a 2-0 deficit after only 14 minutes of play. With the help of a questionable penalty call, England battled back to a 2-2 tie and appeared sure to advance. Less than ten minutes later, however, Mladen Petric put Croatia up for good with a 77th minute strike, his seventh goal in seven qualifying appearances.

In truth, England’s goose was cooked long before this match even got underway. Numerous missed opportunities will haunt the English side for the next four years, including a miserable 0-0 home draw against weak sister Macedonia and an earlier loss to Croatia. Perhaps the worst result was the 2-1 away loss to Russia that came less than a month after England had soundly defeated the Russians 3-0 at Wembley Stadium. In the end, England finished tied for third (with noted soccer powerhouse Israel) and finished a mere one point behind Russia and qualification.

As much as English football fans do not want to admit it, England can no longer be considered a soccer power. Sure, they invented the game, but what has England done in the last forty years? Since capturing their only World Cup title in 1966 (on English soil), England has advanced past the quarterfinals only once, reaching the semifinals in 1990. England followed up on that semifinal appearance by flaming out in 1994 World Cup qualifying and missed the tournament completely. England’s record in the European Championship is even worse, with no titles and only two semifinal appearances since 1960, most recently in 1996.

For comparison’s sake, the Netherlands (who have never actually won a World Cup) have managed to reach the World cup semi-finals three times and have two runner-up finishes, and have five European Championship semi-final appearances and one Championship over the same time period. Rival Germany has eight World Cup semifinals appearances and two titles, as well as six European Championship semi-finals appearances and three championships since 1966. France has reached four World Cup semi-finals, including one title, and has twice won the European Championship. Italy has won the World Cup twice and the European Championship once, as well as numerous semi-final and final appearances in both.

In addition to being out-performed by Europe’s traditional powers, English supporters have had to watch the likes of Denmark and Greece win recent European Championships. Portugal, Russia, and the Czech Republic have all advanced further in the last twenty years than England ever has. In fact, England is rated as only the 13th most successful European side in the history of that tournament, which can only be considered mediocre at best.

Perhaps the world is starting to become aware of England’s shortcomings: England did not receive one of the nine top seeds in last week's Europe World Cup Qualifying draw, and as fortune would have it, England was drawn into the same group as Croatia. Perhaps some redemption is in order, but, more likely, England supporters should start bracing for another round of heartache.