Why are England often so mediocre in sports? (Especially in ones which they themselves invented).

**Tooting Carmen** · 06-23-2017, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by Endovélico

For football:

- the top teams are full of foreigners
- the premier league isn't as good as it used to be. It's entertaining but its top teams are a level below the top teams in europe at the moment.
- a general lack of talented players. Who is the best english player at the moment? A decaying Rooney?

Apart from possibly La Liga, which European league would you currently say is better than the English Premiership?

**~~Cristiano viejo~~** · 06-23-2017, 11:44 PM

Not only England, also ethnic French are a total disaster when sports come.

**~~Cristiano viejo~~** · 06-23-2017, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Arcadefire

It should be noted that not one team who has gone to win the Premier league/ Champions League title , has won the whole without without an English spine. The myth of British players not getting their fair chance in the league due to foreign influx has been debunked already.

Manchester United- Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Neville, Keane, Ferdinand, Carrick, Andy Cole
Chelsea- Lampard, Terry, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole
Arsenal- Seaman, Adams, Ashley Cole, Campbell, Parlour, Wright
Liverpool- Carrager, Mcmanaman, Gerrard, Owen,

Hell, if I am not mistaken majority of the players who were part of the title winning team for Leicester were also British nationals.

Owen and MacManaman did not play in Liverpool when they won the CL.
MacManaman had to come to Real Madrid to win the CL. And twice.

The Liverpool that won the Champions was by far more Spanish than English: Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso, Luis García, Josemi, Antonio Núñez and Benítez the coach.

**Damião de Góis** · 06-24-2017, 12:03 AM

Originally Posted by Tooting Carmen

Apart from possibly La Liga, which European league would you currently say is better than the English Premiership?

The premier league is more leveled at the top which adds to entertainment, but the top teams of Spain, Italy, France and Germany are better than the top english teams as it's been proven in recent champions league editions.

**Mingle** · 06-24-2017, 12:20 AM

England is very underrated in football. England chokes in tournaments but does have a decent team. England had a perfect Euro qualifying campaign (the only team to win all qualifiers) but then did mediocre in the group stages and did bad against Iceland. In the current WC qualifying campaign, they are doing great (except for the last match where they drew with Scotland). England is just bad at turning up on the big stage (and I think this is a post-2000's problem mainly) regarding football.

Since England is obsessed with football, it does worse than Australia and NZ in rugby and cricket. England still made it to the cricket world cup final multiple times and actually won the rugby world cup. Doesn't England have the second best rugby team in the world atm (after NZ)?

GB is also amazing at cycling and got the second most medals in the most recent Olympics. For a country that small, they are massive overachievers.

**Tooting Carmen** · 06-24-2017, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by Mingle

England is very underrated in football. England chokes in tournaments but does have a decent team. England had a perfect Euro qualifying campaign (the only team to win all qualifiers) but then did mediocre in the group stages and did bad against Iceland. In the current WC qualifying campaign, they are doing great (except for the last match where they drew with Scotland). England is just bad at turning up on the big stage (and I think this is a post-2000's problem mainly) regarding football.

Since England is obsessed with football, it does worse than Australia and NZ in rugby and cricket. England still made it to the cricket world cup final multiple times and actually won the rugby world cup. Doesn't England have the second best rugby team in the world atm (after NZ)?

GB is also amazing at cycling and got the second most medals in the most recent Olympics. For a country that small, they are massive overachievers.

I am talking primarily about team sports. Yes, Team GB does increasingly well in the Olympics, but that is mostly individual sports like cycling, horseracing, gymnastics, swimming, athletics etc. The only team sport it systematically does well at in the Olympics is rowing. As for rugby, yes England are currently ranked 2nd in the world, but for many years they had been nowhere near that level, and only two years ago Wales and Australia (both of whom have been in decline since then, as it happens) between them knocked England out of their own World Cup. In fact, between winning the World Cup in 2003 and the Six Nations in 2011, England had not won any silverware at all, although under Stuart Lancaster (notwithstanding the World Cup flop) they did get better, coming 2nd each subsequent year in the Six Nations and beating the All Blacks 38-21 in 2012.

**Svipdag** · 06-24-2017, 02:06 AM

Could it be their devotion to sportsmanship ?

**Dragoon** · 06-24-2017, 02:51 AM

I think its related to culture. Less focus on sports.
Now you have teams like England and France with so many foreigners (particularly on the soccer/football teams) I cant tell if they from Europe or Africa. And they perform worst than they used to.

Finally, teams outside Europe, are getting better.

**Jehan** · 06-24-2017, 08:21 AM

England is involve in too much sports to be at the top in some. I think that's one of the main reason. They are not mediocre at all but just they have good team in all sport so it divide the talents.

**Mingle** · 06-25-2017, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by Tooting Carmen

I am talking primarily about team sports. Yes, Team GB does increasingly well in the Olympics, but that is mostly individual sports like cycling, horseracing, gymnastics, swimming, athletics etc. The only team sport it systematically does well at in the Olympics is rowing. As for rugby, yes England are currently ranked 2nd in the world, but for many years they had been nowhere near that level, and only two years ago Wales and Australia (both of whom have been in decline since then, as it happens) between them knocked England out of their own World Cup. In fact, between winning the World Cup in 2003 and the Six Nations in 2011, England had not won any silverware at all, although under Stuart Lancaster (notwithstanding the World Cup flop) they did get better, coming 2nd each subsequent year in the Six Nations and beating the All Blacks 38-21 in 2012.

The thing is that England does not focus it's attention on a select few sports. A lot of athletes that could have become great footballers/rugger/cricketers chose individual sports over team sports since England also cares about excelling in that department. England is easily the best European country in individual sports.

As for team sports, the team sports that England is good at truly popular global sports. England is good at (but not the best in): football (most widespread sport in the world), cricket (very widespread & popular sport), and rugby (#2 in both codes - which are very popular global sports). Compare that to the team sports that Germany is good. Germany is good at football. What else is Germany good at? Maybe handball (which barely any people watch). I'm a bit puzzled by GB being poor at volleyball and basketball though considering how decent smaller/poorer countries are.

England are much better at rugby (union) in recent years than they were in the past (historically Australia and South Africa were better), but they were still a side to be reckoned with even in the past and they have always been #1 in Europe (or were France better than them for a short while?).