Every major tournament England find a way to take in inflated hopes only to end up disappointed. No surprises, it happened again in Brazil. This time it was the unspoiled youth that was going to lead them deep into the competition. Yeah, about that… it didn’t happen. So what’s the big deal with this team? Why do England always seem to disappoint?

The obvious answer is expectations. On paper, they were never likely to make the knockout stages given the group they had. Uruguay, the fourth placed team in 2010; Italy, runners up at EURO 2012 and with a few players still left over from winning the World Cup in 2006. Both ranked higher than England. Except it wasn’t one of those teams that came out on top – it was unfancied Costa Rica.

I’ve got a theory. People talk about the individual focus in the England team, but they never really look at what that means. England’s biggest problem is that for most of these players, their club football is of a better standard than their national team stuff. In a hypothetical universe where such a game is possible, most of the top clubs in the Premier League would beat England. Manchester City run riot with their creative talent, Aguero giving Cahill and Jagielka fits, Yaya Toure completely bossing Gerrard and Henderson and Kompany shutting Sturridge out of the game. Chelsea bring a tactical masterclass, exposing the playmaking weaknesses of the English side and giving Rooney, Sterling and co. no room to work in, punishing them on the counter and from set pieces. Arsenal have a little trouble with the English forwards, but their midfield is able to pass it round with ease as the Three Lions mourn their lack of a ball winning midfielder. Liverpool? Even without Suarez decimating the English defence again, they still have enough pace to rip them apart – and half the English team play for Liverpool right now anyway. At the least it’ll be a stalemate draw. And Manchester United Wayne Rooney > England Wayne Rooney.

It’s actually a step down for most of these players, and the ones for whom it’s not aren’t up to the standard (in talent or experience or both). How many other World Cup players would say that? Cristiano Ronaldo, obviously, but for the rest of his Portugal side (Pepe excluded), it’s a major step up. They don’t get to play with the best player in the world for their club. There are guys like Edin Dzeko as well, but Bosnia and Herzegovina weren’t expecting to last until the end of the tournament, so maybe they just have the same problem. Anyway, for the marquee players in a national side, it’s not an issue. Not if they’re used to being the best player in their team. Guys like Ronaldo and Messi are accustomed to carrying a team of players weaker than themselves through the tough times. Ronaldo failed at this World Cup (largely due to an underrated injury), but Messi did exactly that all the way to the final.

You’re hard pressed to find a player in this England team that’s the best guy at their club though. Liverpool’s best player has been Luis Suarez for the last few years, and now that he’s gone that talismanic role is up for grabs. Stevie G’s the fan favourite and a club legend, but at 34 he’s not gonna pick up Suarez’s slack, and as of this week he no longer plays for England anyway. Nor is new-boy Adam Lallana gonna be the go-to guy, for all his virtues. Man City’s best player is Yaya Toure, not Joe Hart and certainly not James Milner. Arsenal’s isn’t Wilshere, Walcott or the Ox and Chelsea’s definitely isn’t Terry or Cahill. You can at least make the argument for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United. Rooney has definitely held that title in the past, even if RVP pips him at the post these days. Yet despite him still being the most talented English player, and the only one still capable of that kind of leadership, he was marginalised all tournament. If he’d had the number 9 role, he’d have done a lot better than Sturridge did (12 shots, 6 on target for a single goal). He and Steven Gerrard are the only two from the World Cup squad that have ever carried the load as the best player on a Champions League side.

More Premier League players went to this World Cup than any other league in the world with 119 of them (97 playing for teams other than England). The Serie A had 63 foreign World Cup players, the Bundesliga 58 and La Liga 51. That’s not even close. Only the Italian and Russian squads have no playing connection to the EPL. You can’t doubt the strength of the league, yet the national team hasn’t had nearly the same success as those other top divisions’ countries. I think the overflow of international players in England is more to do with the fact that lesser teams are more willing to search the globe (instead of the local park) for talent than, say, the weaker Spanish or German teams are. But that only increases the depth of the EPL, so why are great English players not developing too? 

Some people complain about the way the top English clubs rely on foreign stars, but if the local talent was there, they’d snap it up. It just isn’t there. The best team in England, Manchester City, only had two players in the English World Cup squad. And James Milner sucks. The best academies in recent years have been West Ham (Ferdinand, Lampard, Cole, Carrick, etc.) and Southampton (Bale, Lallana, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Shaw, etc.), yet where has that got them? Those players mentioned have all either had better careers elsewhere. Fergie’s class of ’92 at Man Utd is the only academy that’s had success with the youth as anything more than a flash in the pan or a transfer investment. Maybe teams just don’t focus enough on player development, knowing that they can poach the best guys from other clubs. I found it interesting recently reading that Belgian clubs used player investments to basically save themselves financially. They poured extra emphasis on developing youngsters with the intention of selling them to bigger European clubs for cash money. It doesn’t win you the Champions League, but try telling a board member at any footy club that there are profits to be made and watch them drool all over their fine-tailored suit.

One thing’s for certain, England still have great players. And the generation of youngsters coming through is only going to fortify that. But who’s to say that Barkley or Wilshere will be better come next World Cup? Is Rooney better now than the last one? Probably not. Russia were the only side to pick a 23 man squad entirely of home based players, but England came close, Fraser Forster (Celtic) being the only lad based outside England. These players are too insulated, too sheltered. Every major league in Europe has its own style of play, but the Englishmen have only experienced their own. Sure, some of them have a lot of Champions League experience, but not enough of them. And only a very small handful has won it. You can’t expect the same few top English clubs to rely on English players to bring them success. It’s time that English players started looking overseas.

You see Spanish and Brazilian players starring in every league in the world. Not Englishmen though. Yet in 2006, Owen Hargreaves, playing out of Bayern Munich, was the best English player at the World Cup. He promptly moved back to England to join Manchester United, and his career turned to mud. Still, there’s a precedent there that few have followed. It’s not like they pay you any less in other countries and if the language is a barrier, well, your teammates at Arsenal or City or Liverpool or United have mostly all had that same culture shock. There’s just an arrogance about English football that their league is the best in the world. I mean, for fans of course it is. It is the most competitive and exciting of all the major world football leagues. But the best players play in Spain and in Germany and in Italy. Why would you not want to experience that? Instead of putting on your boots next to Ricky Lambert, that could be Andrea Pirlo or Lionel Messi. That could be Cristiano Ronaldo that you’re marking at training. I’m not saying fly the coup, but this needs to be an option for young English players to continue to develop. Don’t get stuck behind Yaya Toure at City if you have the option to play alongside Ivan Pranjic or something. Think outside the UK box.

Ashley Cole recently has done just this and he had some curious things to say about the dilemma. He feels that English players are ‘too scared’ to venture beyond the comfort zone of their local game. In moving to Roma, he says he’s embraced the challenge of adapting to the Italian lifestyle – something Ian Rush famously once described as “like living in a foreign country”. But Cole is at the tail end of his career. What I’m talking about here is young players getting out early to avoid settling into the kind of complacency that keeps on stalling their growth as players. You’ve gotta keep looking for challenges to overcome if you want to keep on getting better.

Obviously there is one major speed bump here... Just why would foreign clubs want to sign mid-level Englishmen in the first place? Yeah, that’s a doozy. You really can’t underestimate how much the rest of Europe relies on the same old stereotypes of stoic, structured and boring England. Plus there’s the (rightly) dismissive view of the English tabloid football media (aka ‘The Luis Suarez Defence’). Gareth Bale may have started the change though. And since his World Cup displays, Raheem Sterling has been (tentatively) linked with Real Madrid. If players know that these are realistic goals – playing alongside the best players in the world for the best clubs in the world – then the right type of players will be encouraged to go for it. But if they think that their best bet to make it is to develop into a good ol’ fashioned English centre forward, then the Three Lions will be overrun with Rickie Lamberts (No offence, Rickie, but you ain’t exactly James Rodriguez).

Building from within just isn’t working. England need to play the game as the rest of the world plays it. They don’t have to be carting their whole under-21 squad out on loan to Milan or anything – the mentality is the most important thing: Opening your mind to what the rest of the continent/world has to offer; Gaining international experience other than the odd clash with Malta at Wembley; Playing and thriving in foreign conditions. Gareth Bale won the Champions League in his first year abroad. It can happen. When England won the World Cup in 1966 only 8 players in the entire tournament were playing in a foreign country. In 2014 there were 478. England are going into every tournament underprepared until they embrace that, regardless of how good the Premier League is.