World Cup 2014 - England, Spain, Italy And Why They Failed

Just how did three of Europe’s biggest powerhouses get into such trouble this World Cup? Can Italy dodge the fate that befell Spain and England?

Close your eyes for just a second and ponder this: If someone had told you, before the World Cup, that England, Spain and Italy were going to find themselves in the same boat, you would have backed that boat to be a pretty sturdy one with a dismissive air of inevitability.

Spain, the defending champions, featuring a mostly unchanged squad from the one that won the biggest sporting trophy on the face of the earth just 4 years ago, have now scored a grand total of 1 goal: while also letting in 7. If you think that’s frightening, pause to consider that they still have one more game to go. And if Australia put up something nearly as interesting as the fight they brought to their game with the Dutch, Spain could very well exit having conceded a goals-against tally in the double digits.

Falls from grace are supposed to metaphorical. But in the case of the Spanish, it looks like it really hurt. Not in your average papercut kind of way, but in the kind that accompanies surviving a fall from the 30th floor of a skyscraper, just in time to be trampled upon by a herd of wildebeest.

Sure the Spanish were without Valdes and Puyol, but Del Bosque wasn’t exactly flying to Brazil minus his entire defense. Iker Casillas, long considered an icon of the Iberian peninsula, looked incompetent and out of sorts; in a sense, lending credence to the notion that Mourinho’s exclusion of him was not entirely without cause. If the Spanish defense strikes you as untested and new, the Chilean defense has no household names of its own either.

Ultimately Spain’s early exit is more a sea-change in the way the game is being played, to an actual poor run of luck. The tiki taka train has run its course, and a more direct fluid counter-attacking approach favored by the Dutch and the French, and a robustness exemplified by the Germans has returned to dominate European football.

The African sides with nothing to lose, and arguably relatively bereft of star power, have reaped some rewards with boldness and a willingness to gamble. In contrast, Spain seemed fearful in its approach preferring to stroke the ball sideways and looking wistfully into the horizon as they came unmoored.

Spain were hurt by a combination of their own aging legs, a footballing world that had changed without due notice, the burden of having won their last 3 big tournaments, and a youth brigade that had never really needed to grow up all this while. The Spanish have chosen to retain their faith in Del Bosque, but that could prove to be the wrong move.

Del Bosque is a great shepherd; someone with the ability to channel spectacular talent and keep the team from going off the tracks. Facing a future shorn of Xavi, Iniesta and the fulcrum of the Spanish era, Spain need a gambler, a fighter and someone willing to go back to the drawing board.

If Spain at least have their previous trophies for consolation, England have nothing. Having stumbled and failed to impress at every World Cup since their 1966 triumph, England weren’t on anyone’s list of potential victors. Yet, many observers would have backed them to at least make it through out of the group stage, even if they did so by the skin of their teeth.

Alas, as the close losses to Italy and Uruguay would attest to, England did huff and puff but fell short when it really mattered. Losing by a solitary goal once, can be put down to bad luck. Losing a couple of games, however, on the biggest stage in similar fashion calls into question English tenacity and their stomach for a fight.

If you want to get a sense of team morale, a critical look at the manager would be all it would take. In Roy Hodgson, they chose the blandest of picks: a manager whose record at Fulham consisted of getting them to perform against the odds. But a team like England that believes, and perhaps rightfully so, that it should compete with the big boys of Europe, needs a bigger name. A Sir Alex Ferguson would have done very nicely, thank you very much. Or even from someone a rung below on the managerial pecking order.

England needed a dose of red blood pumping through their veins after the unfortunate loss to Italy. They needed someone to tell them they were wronged by destiny, and that they were going to make their own fate. Roy Hodgson’s view of aggression is almost sophomoric in comparison; his idea of stirring the pot involved poking a sleeping dragon. Roy’s biggest contribution to this campaign will forever be his quote about Suarez needing to prove himself on the biggest stage. People like Drogba, Rooney and Suarez forged in the fires of the Premier League are not pushovers by any means.

Suarez returned from an injury scare to hurt England twice; in a turn that Mourinho called amazing. In other news, Louis van Gaal is actively plotting a United future where Rooney plays in central midfield. It’s bold approaches of that sort that remake teams, in contrast to Hodgson’s meek insistence Rooney play out wide despite the latter’s disdain for that role.

At the end of the day, England can certainly feel sorry for themselves. It isn’t fair that weaker teams that were not in a group with 3 former World Cup winners, will qualify for the Round of 16. Unlike Spain who looked like they had no spark in them, England seemed unwilling to throw in the towel. The World Cup will be poorer for their absence from the Round of 16, at the very least.

Balotelli Italy — Balotelli underestimated Costa Rica

Italy may not be setting the World Cup alight, but then neither are Argentina and Brazil. Put the Azzuri in the ‘doing just enough’ category; which is scant consolation for their fans. At least Argentina’s and Brazil’s fans haven’t had to travel the length those donning electric blue have to.

Is Italy destined to crash out of the group stage too? Uruguay will certainly test them to the limits, and if this World Cup has taught us anything it’s that pedigree counts for nothing once those team step onto the green. Against England, the Azzuri may have gotten lucky with Hodgson’s unwillingness to have his team man-mark Andrea Pirlo out of existence. They may have also gotten lucky with an English side that truly believed their equalizer had swung the game in their favor, and sacrificed their defensive concentration for an attempt at unlikely win.

Balotelli’s assumption that Costa Rica were cannon fodder, and his Twitter dig seeking a kiss from the Queen in return for the supposedly foregone conclusion that the Italians were going to single-handedly thump Costa Rica betrayed everyone’s sneering contempt of a Costa Rican side that was derided as having gotten lucky in their slaying of Uruguay because of Suarez’s absence.

As the dust settles, Spain and England can look to rebuild like France has knowing full well that title-winning glory will likely again be a long ways off. As for Italy, the best that can be said about their current campaign is that they still have something their Iberian and Anglo counterparts do not.

Hope.

World Cup 2014 – England, Spain, Italy And Why They Failed

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