Euro 2016: Ignominious exit against Iceland shows England has learnt nothing from its past failures

It’s a terrible time to be an Englishman. While many of their countrymen, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to get out of the EU without truly comprehending the consequences of their actions, English football continues to hit new depths. Of course, England’s defeat to tiny Iceland, the team Cristiano Ronaldo said wouldn’t do anything in the tournament, wasn’t just down to England’s terrible brain-freeze after they went down but also Iceland’s nerveless endeavour even after they went down.

As the Iceland players – heady after reaching the quarterfinal in their first major tournament – celebrated with their fearsome clap routine, the English players lay on the ground wondering what had gone wrong. 

Iceland players celebrate with their fans (Getty Images) 

Frankly, it’s a routine England should be used to by now and one that they’ve perfected with years of ineptitude in major tournaments. Roy Hodgson is off, retiring minutes after the match with a length statement no one really cared about like David Cameron’s resignation. Both of them also had the look of men who never saw this coming, smug in their own non-existent superiority in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. This wasn't a smash-and-grab win by any stretch of an imagination, Iceland were for the better team throughout the tournament. 

Despite never-ending evidence to the obvious mediocrity of the side, Hodgson continued to talk up his young team. The only certain about English football is that it will continue to plummet to new depths but sugarcoat it with big words to hide their mediocrity.

There will be the same old press conference promising change, there will be talk of re-developing the youth system to get the best out of English youngsters. They will beat some minnows in the preceding years in the qualifiers, talk about how this is their year, and fail again.

Roy Hodgson (Getty Images) 

There was a time when England managed to get to quarter finals and eventually get knocked out on penalties against bigger sides, a result that often happened in the Golden Era and angered fans. Now, they can’t even do that and lose to unfancied opponents. As far as results go, England losing to Iceland was as bad as the time when England lost against an almost-amateur USA side in 1950. 

To be fair England have been woeful in this tournament. They might have dominated possession, but that’s the only positive stat, one that many will point out is non-consequential in the bigger picture.

Their defence has been slack letting a lacklustre Russia side, whose fans have shown far more fight than the team, find a late equaliser. They also failed to beat Slovakia, a team Germany dispatched with ease. They were also quite lucky to beat Gareth Bale’s Wales thanks to a late goal and Bale’s brag that not a single English player would get into the Welsh team also seems believable, if only based on current tournament form.

But all that was supposed to be washed away by a strong performance against minnows waiting for the taking. But the Iceland players hadn’t gone so far based on their looks, and they simply didn’t have time for reputations. They had already made Portugal look silly, and contrived to do so for England as well.

In a match that began with much hope, as Wayne Rooney put England up from the spot, that was the only positive of note before Iceland came roaring back like their fearless Viking ancestors (a joke suggests that the Vikings moved to Iceland from Norway because they wanted a colder place), and equalised within a minute and scored a second in quick succession. While the first goal was a result of a Stoke-sque long throw, the second showed that singing the national anthem loudly doesn’t equate with good goalkeeping.

Joe Hart has had a pretty woeful tournament and it got worse as he looked less agile than a comatose patient failing to keep out simple chances.

Joe Hart (Getty Images) 

Harry Kane, Premier League’s Golden Boot winner looked absolutely incapable of scoring throughout the tournament while Raheem Sterling, the most expensive English player of all time did his standard Daphne run to little avail as his value in the market plummeted like the currency he shares a name with.

By the time England conceded the second goal, panic set in and England reverted to their best impression of a lower-half league side as they pumped the ball into the box hoping someone would head it in. The one single moment that epitomised England's inadequacy was late in the first half, when Harry Kane stepped up to put in a free-kick from a dangerous position but sent it sprawling into the stands. 

Iceland on the other hand refused to know their place in the game and retreat and continued to attack, with one Sigurdsson over-head kick forcing Hart to wake up from his slumber. For long, Iceland looked the better side despite having less possession, and it was only when Marcus Rashford was brought on for the last 5 minutes that England’s attack looked like they had any teeth but it was too little too late.

Harry Kane (Getty Images) 

What will follow is also a time-tested method. As Roy Hodgson leaves, a new manager will be found and depending on the FA’s mood it will either be a veteran foreigner who’ll have trouble understanding the country’s values or an underachieving English manager with the inability to inspire a chicken to cross the road. The attention will turn to the new Premier League season as clubs pay inflated prices for English players with even more inflated egos, while smarter clubs will get infinitely more talented foreigners on the cheap. England will beat some minnows to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018 before bottling it in the major tournament.

The really sad thing is that the likes of Germany and even England’s opponents, Iceland have shown that football revolutions are possible by focussing on the grassroots and getting the best out of young players but it seems to be that England has no patience for the hard graft. Instead they will be happy to live in their delusional Premier League world of high TV ratings, higher wages, and inflated egos, which sadly will never transform into results on the pitch for the national team.