Caring vs talking

The acres of dead trees discussing the craptaculartude of the world's worst football team reminds me of Heather Mills.
No, I don't just mean that England played like unipedal cretins. I mean that journalists are making the same mistake Ms Mills makes - of confusing caring with talking.
The thing is, no true football fan cares that much about England. Our loyalties are to our club side.
But we often talk more about the national side than about our club side. This is because the England team acts as a convenient focal point for discussion.  
I have a couple of colleages who support S****; as I say, work is alienating. I don't discuss the really important footballing questions with them: Walcott vs Rosicky? Should Hleb play out wide or in the middle? Have physicists discovered a unit of measurement large enough to capture the extent to which Cesc is superior to every other player on the planet?
Talking about Arsenal with S**** fans would be like discussing Rembrandt with David Blunkett. Similarly, they don't discuss their misfortune with me, for fear of hearing my Nelson Muntz impersonation.
Instead, we talk about England; it's a convenient meeting point for discussion. In other words, the England team is an Adler superstar (pdf). We talk about it not because we like it more than other things, but because its something we all know. The difference between the England team and piles is that we agree that one is a suitable topic of discussion whilst the other isn't; indeed, this might be the only difference.
The same is true for many celebrities. People talk about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Heather Mills not because these women are more talented or better-looking than others, but simply because they are well-known.
There are two implications here.
First, inequalities of income can be unmerited. Celebrities can earn big money not because they have ability, but simply because they get people talking; this is the secret of Piers Morgan's success*.
Second, celebrities themselves can get fooled by this. Some - and this is where Ms Mills comes in - think that because we talk about them, we care. But we don't. For making this mistake, Ms Mills will probably kick herself.
* No mention of Mr Morgan can pass without Stephen Fry's contribution to the Uxbridge English Dictionary: "Countryside: the act of killing Piers Morgan."

Comments

[Trooper Thompson]

Much as I share your views on the glorious Gunners, you're wrong about this:

"no true football fan cares that much about England. Our loyalties are to our club side"

You're talking about yourself and extrapolating this out to the rest of the country. You're also confusing what people think with what newspapers write, and I imagine you're not very patriotic.

[sanbikinoraion]

I agree with TT, above. I support England but no club sides at all - I don't see how I am supposed to care about a club whose sole link to me is the local positioning of its ground - few Premiership players are actually from the town (country) in which they play their football; why should I care about them?

At least women's football is largely composed of local players.

[Mark Brinkley]

Do you think the England team is weighed down by the sackloads of money in their wallets? Could it actually make them play worse?

[james c]

I thought you were a professional Northerner and here you are supporing the Scum.

[reason]

As I ex-pat Aussie I have absolutely no allegance to a club side but plenty to the Socceroos.

I actually don't think England are anything like the world's worst football team. In fact given the fact that they represent England who are traditionally terrible at sports relative to their population they do reasonably well. It is just that they are burdened with totally unreasonable expectations, which hampers the guy given the job of looking after them enormously.

International football, is different than club football, mainly in that the players spend so little time together, innate ability must count for more than with normal teams (where it still is important).

So a few key talented individuals make all the difference. The five key individuals missing in their last game, more than explain the result.