Italy's superiority (1)

Maybe it's time Alistair-Paul Borg (February 4) is brought back down to earth to be taught an important history lesson on football at national level. England could have easily taken part in the 1934 and 1938 Jules Rimet Cup as no qualification rounds were then required due to the limited number of teams participating. However, they considered themselves superior to other footballing nations and that it was unbecoming of them to participate in such competitions, and therefore opted to stay out. When they finally realised that other football national teams (Brazil, Hungary, Uruguay and Italy) were making great strides and notwithstanding that being the inventors of the game they were trailing behind, they finally made up their mind to participate in the 1950 World Cup tournament in Brazil where they were unceremoniously chucked out by an amateur United States team.

Football, or soccer as it was known in the States then, was quite unknown and not at all popular with Americans which goes to prove why this defeat was as humiliating as the home 2-3 defeat against Croatia suffered in last year's European Nations Cup qualification. England only needed a draw on home soil against a side that had already qualified thanks to Israel having beaten Russia. Yet they managed to do the impossible and lose the game. No wonder the English press and fans were after coach Steve McClaren's scalp! Maybe with a renowned Italian coach at the helm of the England team, things can only get better! Mr. Borg's comments about what prompted the English FA to choose an Italian coach from a long list of British and foreign contenders would be appreciated.

I cannot understand Mr Borg's criteria when he states that football friendlies had more meaning in those days. Probably because they were uncompetitive matches through which the England national team could win against other nations who rightly considered them as "friendlies" while the English team went all out to get results they could never hope to achieve at competition level.

England could easily have taken part in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups but preferred to play a spectator primadonna role. This failing in no way minimises the Azzurri's double success. Mr Borg conveniently fails to state the number of times England beat Italy in friendly or competitive games since 1973. Maybe that's because it never happened.

I cannot imagine by what stretch of the imagination Mr. Borg states that the Italians did not encounter a single "superpower" on the way to a fourth World Cup success in Germany. Aren't France and Germany "superpower" footballing nations or is England solely in the "superpower" class?

And if North and South Korea (many football experts harbour grave doubts whether South Korea's victories in the 2002 World Cup were merited or whether they should be attributed to favourable refereeing!) dumped out the Azzurri, weren't England likewise dumped out on a greater number of times by smaller fry as they only managed to win the World Cup once on home soil in 1966 by a fluke goal?

It appears that Mr Borg cannot stomach the fact that the Azzurri have won the World Cup four times to England's one or that England now has an Italian coach. I am not going into Champions League and UEFA Cup history because I feel that both nations have had their rightful successes along the years. Italian clubs were prominent in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s while English clubs saw most of their successes since then. However, it's rather strange that Mr Borg mentioned AC Milan's exceptional success last season. He forgot to mention that they beat two English clubs on the way to the final and won the final despite the presence of three other English clubs out of four semi-finalists. No amount of listed favourable scores between English and Italian teams at club level can erase the fact that Italy's football superiority over England is self-evident at competitive levels.