Never have so many parrots been sickened for so little pleasure by so few inept footballers – or so Churchill may have said were he still alive today. The poor man must be spinning. But before we blame the players – maybe even instead of blaming them – we should consider the role inflexible leadership had in yesterday’s poor performance.

As the leader directly responsible for the England team, we should begin with Fabio Capello. There was no doubting his skill as a player or club manager; he was winner with a great CV. He also built up a great record in the prelim games – albeit against some second rate opposition. Things looked to be in place for the finals, then. And yet his insistence on playing Gerrard on the left and stubbornly keeping to the 4-4-2 formation, when different tactics were plainly required, ensured England never found the spark that could have taken them much further.

Then there is the leadership of football in England itself, and especially in the Premier League. In Germany there is far more focus on the national side. Yes, that means that their club football is not as exciting and as profitable as England’s – but you can’t have it all. Choices are made and games are won and lost on those choices. We have known for years that our system is not helping the national sides (Wales and Scotland included) but inflexibility reigns and the status quo remains.

But top of the league for stubbornness in the face of overwhelming evidence of the need for change must be Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s chief. It appears that he is the one man who remains unconvinced of the need for technology in making some decisions during a game. Lampard’s goal was clearly over the line yesterday – and the use of a fifth official in front of a monitor would have settled the matter very quickly. In the evening game between Argentina and Mexico a goal was allowed when the scorer was clearly offside. Within seconds the BBC had shown us how poor a decision it was. But Blatter remains opposed.

Inflexibility and leadership do not make good partners. But then as a church leader, I know that, don’t I?

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