A trip to Europe without a visa.

 Subject: A trip to Europe without a visa.

One of the issues I have with today's football is the need to convert the game into words and intentions. There are few sides who are good enough to convert team talk into action, to translate the schemes into goals. Football is one of those games which in so many instances the lucky rebound, the deflection results in goals, often against the run of the game. Today's game, Slovenia v Serbia was a great game but a nightmare for the commentator with all the Serbia names ending in "vic". It was an end to end, open game which I appreciate rather than the delicate tip tap, often towards ones own goal in an effort to capture and keep the ball no matter what. Teams and their managers are coached themselves by pundit and popular opinion, the need to play the game which is in front of them rather than that in a team talk which often stultifies the game.

England are under the cosh in so far as the team of 'stars' are concerned, over paid young men who, if they were to believe the hype they are the equivalent of the "second-coming". The old professionals, the pundits who "know, you know" translate the game 'we' watch into something else, sometimes unrecognisable from our own experience which has become board by its negativity. Bellowing their superior knowledge in a plethora of accents, they, like the political class live in a different world. They drip hyperbole and feed us crumbs of comfort when there should be none.

The England team players play as of they have just banked their club cheque £60,000 a week (£2,800,000 pa) and hardly need the chicken feed of an international appearance.

Their loyalty is towards their club not towards the millions of supporters who sit ashen faced as the hype is shown to be just that. The England players stand around the centre of the field, seemingly lost, asking, "why are we here". No longer are they put under the pressure by the 'foreign players' in their clubs which they get when playing for club football. No fear of loosing your club place and the money you get for playing it, is it just a part of the multinational nature of our country. Watching Serbia play Slovenia one is struck by the energy and the willingness to die for the game by these unknown players on £600 a week.

As the pundits burst their vocal cords in frustration and we sit back with yet another evening of lost belief, much as in our politics, we are a nation of over-belief, always looking over our shoulder for the other guy to find the solution.