England's Flawed Mentality

Manchester United's choke job in yesterday's UEFA Champions League semifinals has the English media on high alert. With Arsenal having the hard luck of being drawn against Lio Messi & The Barcelonas (my favorite indie band from Europe), Chelsea getting out-classed by their beloved Special One, and Liverpool stinking up the joint months ago, United's loss confirmed the fear that no English Premier League teams will participate in the final four of Europe's top club competition. The headlines across the island read "England Out!" and "Shock Failure for Premier League!". To understand the faults of this mentality, you have to examine England as a whole.

There has always been this absurd idea in England that everyone related to football would rather be on the island than anywhere else on the continent. Over the last 10 years, Premier League pride has grown exponentially. Everyone in England has labeled the Premiership as being vastly superior to any other domestic competition on the globe. As for the pride issue, the media have begun rooting for English teams. During the CSKA/Inter match, the English commentators openly discussed their desire for Arsenal to defeat Barca so they could see Mourinho return to England to face Arsene Wenger's side.

This English inferiority complex has grown too large. Even Andy Gray, my favorite color commentator, seemed to be rooting for the Gunners while in awe of Lionel Messi. Messi's performance also seemed to shock the English, as though they forgot their were quality players outside of England! Other than a hatred of Real Madrid by United and Liverpool supporters from the summer transfers of Cristiano Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso, the English only seem to view Spain as a nice place to go on holiday. Lest we not forget that their is good football in Italy, Germany, and France as well. Sir Alex Ferguson blamed Manchester United's defeat on the "typical Germans" with regards to Rafael's red card. Ferguson's portrayal of England vs. Germany is utterly ridiculous. Bayern had representatives from the Netherlands (Robben and van Bommel), France (Ribery), Croatia (Olic and Pranjic), Turkey (Altintop), Argentina (Demichelis), and Belgium (Van Buyten) participate in the match. That's 8 non-Germans. Not surprisingly, United were no more English than Bayern were German. Fergie's team had players from the Netherlands (van der Sar), Serbia (Vidic), France (Evra), Brazil (Rafael), Northern Ireland (Gibson), Scotland (Fletcher), Portugal (Nani), Ecuador (Valencia) in his starting lineup! Only THREE English players started for United (Ferdinand, Carrick, Rooney). Even worse, United brought Ryan Giggs (Wales), John O'Shea (Ireland), and Dimitar Berbatov (Bulgaria) off the bench. That's 11 players from 11 different nations that represented United in the match.

I don't expect the pundits to depart with their oft-used "best league in the world" tagline, but I hope they cut out this outright rooting. It reminds me of people in the southeastern United States being stunned when no SEC football team makes the BCS Championship game. How could a team from the best league NOT make the championship!?! I expect the English to completely tune out the rest of the Champions League, but I'd suggest they watch. It will be a great opportunity to see the likes of Arjen Robben (remember him), Franck Ribery, Wesley Snjeider, Samuel Eto'o, Maicon, Lisandro Lopez, and more magic from Lio Messi & The Barcelonas. Just make sure you nibble on your fish and chips while watching, forget your English ways and declare "damn, these guys are great!" Who are they again?