mattus.co.uk: the website of Matt Wood

So England’s World Cup campaign ended in another quarter-final penalty defeat, and Tim Henman’s tame departure from Wimbledon in the second round was less than unexpected. And now the blame game starts. It was the referee, the umpire, the weather, the slower courts, the coach, the tempers, the training regime – Sven, as we’re all aware by now, is not English, despite exhibiting a sly promiscuity with ladies which is quintessentially so. Yet Svennis, who picks his words as carefully as a weary and sweating soldier trying to defuse a bomb, he who sits motionless in the dugout whilst ‘Big Phil’ Scolari rants and raves, he who refuses to drop Beckham despite his by-now legendary inability to hit the target, has a typical English attitude to sport. We are Too Nice to Win.

Take Henman. A good player, not a great one, but a player who at Wimbledon possessed a tremendously unfair advantage: the home crowd. The normally-genteel hordes on Henman Hill arrived in droves, and came away from every match with bloodlust, a desire to hunt down the latest Swedish or Australian or American prodigy who was the cause of Tim’s downfall and severely hamper his ability to play tennis. So what did Tim do? He ignored them. The occasional fist-pump was the only sign of emotion which he betrayed on Centre Court, and you got the distinct impression that even that was introverted rather than a call for support. Tiger Tim was tame as they come – and now, he’s strictly past tense.

Andy Murray, now – he shows some bottle. The gestures to the crowd, the losing of tempers, his outspoken attacks in the press… Murray is a future Wimbledon champion in the making. What separates him from Henman is not his talent – it is his killer instinct. But Murray, of course, is not English.

Nor are Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese players whom we saw going down like they’d been shot whenever an English defender was within five metres of them. Yes, diving and play-acting are cheating, and referees are being told to see through it. Yet still often they don’t, and the Portuguese are winning countless free kicks because of it – ultimately, they’re keeping the ball, and without possession you don’t win football matches. It’s not just the Portuguese either. It’s the French – Henry anyone? – and the Italians, the Brazilians, the Spanish… all good sides, perfectly capable of winning games without these kinds of antics.Then why do they do it? It’s because it gives them that tiny advantage, on the pitch and in their heads, and a Cup-winning side takes any advantage they can get. Everybody does it but the English. It’s all very well saying that it’s dirty and shows cowardice and poor sportsmanship. Which it does, but which of England, Portugal, France and Italy are still in Germany? And Germany themselves? They play off the home crowd. Take note, Mr. Henman.