Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

John Carlin in The Sunday Times today has written a fantastic piece that perfectly highlights England’s shortcomings as a football team.

He interviewed Spanish ace Xabi Alonso about why England failed so miserably at the World Cup, who said, very eloquently, that the 11 best does not make the best 11.

Yes, we can litter our team with world-beaters and Champions League heroes, Premiership champions and footballers of the year; but ultimately, it is not a team.

To make a team, you design it, and design it with specific players and their specific skills in mind. You do not get the 11 best players and force them into a position and a system that they’re not used to. You don’t force them to play in these unfamiliar ways, because, as we have seen, they will play like strangers.

England have played like strangers for so long that it has become the norm – to get better, to make it into a further stage of the World Cup than the last 16, we need to break the mould.

When Germany were thrashing England the other day, the commentator said: how many of these German players would you swap for the England team? He was talking, of course, about the supposed brilliance of our individual players.

But Germany are a brilliant team. They play with the fearlessness of youth, and they play like they are enjoying themselves. And they are now in the semi-finals after destroying Argentina in a similar fashion to the way they dismantled England.

It is not about the individuals: it is about how they co-exist, how they play together, how they string passes and think and work as a unit out on the field.

I just hope that England learn their lesson, and learn it quickly.