There is something about British sportsmen and women that means for some reason they don’t seem to have it when it really comes down to the crunch.
England’s football team are a classic example, in recent years they just haven’t shown the presence of mind, or the presence of bravery to hold out.
A penalty shoot out is essentially a show of nerve, picking a direction and relying on the technique to put it there. The argument that we lose penalty shoot-outs because our technique isn’t great is weak.
These are professional footballers, they know how to kick a ball twelve yards, it is just that they don’t seem to do it very well.
Maybe it’s heart, maybe that’s the problem with the football team.
Club loyalties are, generally, so strong now that when it comes to the national game it just doesn’t matter as much, but I don’t think that’s true, I think something is just missing in the organisation, round pegs in round holes,
and I hope Capello can sort it out.
Tennis is another sport in which we seem to struggle.
Henman, of course, was a famous bottler, a great player, a wonderful servant of British tennis yet when it really came down to it, he didn’t take the opportunity when it was presented to him.
In Murray we seem to have crafted a similar player, undeniably driven, and talented, yet he has a mental frailty that seems to manifest in a peculiar addiction to the drop shot,
even when it doesn’t work he keeps on trying and it’s not the most effective weapon in modern tennis.
Our cricket team have shown signs of the same disease recently. One ball left against New Zealand, two runs to get, a pushed single, one of our players attempted a run out, no one backed up and the ball trickled for two.
It was a classic moment of sporting foolishness, the player had every right to go for the run out, but everyone else was so caught up in the moment that no one thought to back up.
We’re good at tests, possibly because it’s a steady progression that doesn’t require snappy decisions in quite the same way.
In certain sports, though, like cycling and rowing we’re brilliant, probably the best in the world.
Yet, those are sports that require dedication, grit and superhuman effort but if you take rowing as an example, there aren’t that many tactics involved, or that much agility of thought required.
Only a month or two ago, we were, according to Blue Square, up there with the favourites for the next football World Cup.
Whether this was to invite people to place foolish bets or not I couldn’t say, but when it comes down to the crunch it’s going to take a lot to convince me that we’ve got what it takes.
Likewise if I was into sports betting I wouldn’t put much money on Murray or our cricket team.
Something needs to change in the way we develop our sportsmen and women so that when they have to use their mind as much as their body, everything doesn’t fall apart.
Sports Betting Odds provided by Blue Square.