Don't cry for me Argentina

Tonight I had the pleasure of watching Brazil vs Mexico. Whatever you may think of the England team, you simply have to admire Brazil. Afterwards on the news, we had the sorry spectacle of  a  Fabio Capellos press conference (you know, the bloke the FA pay £5 million a year for). It seems that we are trotting out all of the same old excuses. Premiership players play too many games. Well Carlos Tevez looked pretty useful to me after a gruelling Premiership season. What about Mascherano? He looked pretty useful too. I could go on. The sad truth is that England just weren't up to it. The Premiership doesn't dominate Europe in the way we kid ourselves it does. Who won the Champions League this year? Inter? Who won it last year? Barcelona? There really is only one area in which it does lead the world. That is in charging extotionate prices to pay overpaid players, effectively excluding the grass roots working class fans. I'm 47  years old. I pay approx £12 a week to play five-a-side twice a week with my mates. Why? because I enjoy it. Did any of the English players really look like they were having fun, even for one minute on Sunday? Guess what game I enjoyed most in last seasons football calendar. It was my sons under 10 team Watling FC, in a 3-3 draw at Burnt Oak lesuire centre. It was a great game of football with some awesome play and some great goals. I look at our Premiership players, some of their antics, their lifestyles and I do wonder where it all went wrong. I wonder if the new Government banned all professional football, forced the clubs to go amatuer, cut admission to grounds to £1 and made all players take public transport to the grounds, how many would hang up their boots.

A crazy notion you say. We'd never win anything with that sort of system. Well, I hate to point this out, but all of the England players who won the world cup for us in 1966, learned there skills when we had a wage cap in professional football and used to take the bus to the ground as apprentices at age 18. You say that we'd loose all our best players to foreign clubs? Maybe but at least home grown players would get a place in the teams. It's a pipedream, I know you can't beat the market, but I just would like to see a bit more passion and a bit more pride. And come on Brazil !