So, you’ve got some English heritage and you’ve decided to support the Three Lions at the World Cup. Welcome! There’s a chance you’ve made a terrible mistake, but let’s do this.
Despite what you’ve seen on television, there’s a lot more to cheering for this team than drinking cheap lager and throwing plastic chairs. Being an England fan comes with a rich history of highs, lows, and penalty kicks that were just the right height for the goalkeeper to save. By the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll have absorbed the precise mix of optimism, bitterness, joy, despair, imperial arrogance, and panicky inferiority complex that goes into supporting the nation that invented football and then let other nations perfect it.
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The collective noun “England” is plural
Let’s start with some quirky grammar. I know it feels wrong. I know it breaks the rules. But if you’re going to support this team, you also have to accept the weird British grammatical rule that treats team names as plural. For example, “England are in trouble here;” “England have failed to score;” “England have finished bottom of the group.” Historically, this has worked well for England, because the team has (oops! I mean have) been a collection of individuals as opposed to a unified whole.
This probably won’t end well
It went well that one time, back in 1966. But we hosted that one and also had some help from a very generous linesman in the final. Since then, we’ve done this a lot, and it almost always ends in tears—quite literally in 1990.
It’s actually worse than you imagine: Since 1966, across all World Cups and European Championships, England have only won six games in the knockout rounds. The very short list of the vanquished reads: Paraguay (1986), Belgium (1990), Cameroon (1990), Spain (1996), Denmark (2002), and Ecuador (2006).
This is fine if you’re a plucky underdog, not so fine for a team that genuinely thinks it might be contenders. The problems seems to be that the glory of 1966 is now so long ago—an updated “Three Lions” song would have to include the line “Fifty-two years of hurt”—that England’s one World Cup win is less an inspiration and more the corpse of an albatross that we hang around the neck of every player before he boards the plane.
There will be an injury scare
It is our national tradition to pin all of our hopes and dreams on one messianic player, then sit back and wait for said player to get injured. This is how, in 2002, we found ourselves watching illusionist and self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller ask us to place our hands on the TV screen and imagine David Beckham’s broken metatarsal knit itself back together, so that our collective willpower would heal our favorite free-kick taker.
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There will be penalty kicks
Another national tradition is to lose on penalty kicks. It started in 1990 with a loss to West Germany and we consoled ourselves by saying that we were just unlucky. But then it happened again in 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006, and 2012 and now I’m starting to think maybe we should practice more from 12 yards out.
Here’s how to watch: If in a pub, comfort fellow pessimistic penalty-kick patriots with gallows humor. This is both an expected courtesy and a bonding ritual. If home alone, I recommend placing your fingers in front of your face so you can play penalty-kick peek-a-boo. If watching on a mobile device, write down how much your phone is worth and what it will cost to replace and put that information somewhere very, very visible when Jordan Henderson steps up to take the if-he-misses-this-they’re-out kick.
It is, of course, a national curse. But it’s a national curse we cast on ourselves by obsessing about it, creating a self-fulfilling spot-kick prophecy because every player that steps up is terrified of becoming their generation’s Chris Waddle, Gareth Southgate, or Jamie Carragher. And the truth is, in a Stockholm syndrome-type situation, I’ve come to miss the penalty shootout defeat in recent years. It had a perverse honor and comforting familiarity that I found preferable to finishing bottom of the group in 2014 and losing in regular time to Iceland in 2016.
There will be a villain
It’s all going to one man’s fault, we just haven’t yet decided who it is. Could be an England player who lacks passion, penalty kick accuracy, or the ability to commit fouls discreetly—we hung a sarong-wearing David Beckham in effigy after his 1998 red card vs. Argentina for that one. Or it could be an opponent who handballs, takes a dive, or maybe just winks at an England player—we nearly ran Cristiano Ronaldo out of the country for closing one evil eyelid in Wayne Rooney’s direction in 2006. So save up your outrage, you’ll be needing it soon.
But remember to get optimistic right before the tournament
Before every tournament, we talk ourselves into believing that things really could be different this time. Because how can these men all play in the Premier League and be so very, very bad? So—and hear me out—I think things really could be different this time.
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Manager Gareth Southgate is a 1996 graduate of Our Lady of Missed Penalty Kicks, which, granted, is not the most exclusive institution, but it does mean his World Cup adventure will offer an opportunity for redemption. Southgate has selected a youthful group of players that is full of pace and confidence, and the squad he selected all fit a system as opposed to just being a list of the most famous names and hoping that will do. Raheem Sterling is going to terrorize defenses with his dribbling; Harry Kane is one of the best finishers in the world; Jordan Henderson is the English Busquets; and the only reason John Stones hasn’t played much for Manchester City this year is because Pep Guardiola was resting him for the World Cup. Maybe it could all end with another unexpected party at Jamie Vardy’s house….
Most important: Never give up hope
Because even if things go horribly, horribly wrong for England, you could maybe find some German ancestry to fall back on for the semifinals.
(Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images)