Why England should take a leaf out of Arsenal and Liverpool's book and forget about passion

Football pundits love to refer to the characteristics of a nation’s players. We often hear about Brazilian flair, German efficiency, Italian technique and, most of all, English passion.

But this obsession with passion is detrimental to the success of the English national side and, perhaps even worse, genuine passion is rarely demonstrated.

The Big Four of Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal seem to be able to avoid the British Bulldog approach when they play in the Premier League and the Champions League - but that's probably because they have so many foreigners in their teams.

But when England play an international game, the pre-match analysis - and, I expect, the manager’s team talk if he’s English - boils down to: "Yes, there are foreign types who may be better than us in some airy fairy attributes like controlling and kicking a football, but if the English team plays with passion, we’ll win. We’ll play at a high tempo, put 'em under pressure and get stuck in. After all, it’s a scientific fact that Johnny Foreigner doesn't like it up him."

In short, in the face of a well-organised opponent with superior skill levels, the English response is to do a communal Scrappy Doo impression.

England’s dismal failure against Croatia last year should have led to England waking up to the fact that passion is no match for teamwork and quality on the ball. And yet, amid a great deal of post-match examination and soul-searching, most people were still missing the point.

Take Paul Jewell, for example. Jewell is a man who was linked with the England job just 20 months ago and is commonly referred to in the media with phrases like “shrewd operator”, “wily” and “knowledgeable”.

Well, Mr Shrewd Operator appeared on Football Focus in the aftermath of England’s defeat to Croatia and put the team’s poor performance down to England "trying to play too much like continentals” by passing the ball around slowly. He was imploring that an England team should be getting the ball forward quicker.

Get the ball forward quicker? How can you get the ball forward any quicker than by smashing it aimlessly first time? Wayne Bridge and co. could be accused of many things on that dismal November night, but dwelling on the ball was not one of them.

Jewell is about as wily and knowledgeable as my gran - and she thinks her toaster is a radio. Yet he and the rest of the pool of English managers that play on the managerial roundabout of lower Premier League/Championship clubs earn millions by adhering to a lazy, blinkered belief in the doctrine of passion.

At least the FA appeared to realise a fundamental change was required in how the England team was coached when they appointed Fabio Capello, the manager with the best CV in football - a manager known for organising teams and teaching them not to squander possession. Yet in his first game in charge, the England team were actually criticised for playing too many short passes and not playing at an "English tempo", as if keeping possession and taking a structured approach to playing were bad things!

Of course, comments on the game itself were dwarfed by the debate over David Beckham not being selected to play. Apparently Becks is passionate about playing for England and therefore he should be in the team.

Now, Beckham is a fine striker of a dead ball and the best crosser in the business - qualities that have led to many goals for England. But passionate? If he were so passionate about England, would he have forced his national team-mates to carry him for years to cover his lack of mobility on the pitch?

Granted he’s had injuries, but that does not fully explain how he deteriorated from being the player who topped the fitness test tables at Manchester United to the man who hovers around the halfway line whilst the right-back bombs forward into the final third of the pitch where Beckham should be.

In the last World Cup, Beckham was little more than an American football-style specialist kicker, wheeled out for dead ball situations before returning to anonymity.

This obsession with passion in the England team stems from club football. Take Newcastle as an example. When Kevin Keegan was recently appointed manager, the most commonly cited reason was that “no one else has more passion for the club".

This may well be true, but there are lot of other managers who are better qualified to deliver the changes the club needs - sorting out the defence and not buying players that are thugs, injury-prone or simply not good enough.

Their chairman, Mike Ashley, wears a Newcastle shirt with the number 17 on the back. That is Alan Smith’s number and Ashley says he wears it because Smith plays with passion. Really? I thought Smith’s game was based on blatantly fouling opponents then telling the ref to eff off when he awards a free-kick.

In no way does this help his team. On the contrary, Smith has recently led the Opta stats "Bad Boys" table with 68 fouls, eight yellow cards and one red. Apparently this constitutes playing with passion.

Presumably, it is because of this kind of "passion" that Smith was given the captain’s armband in December. Now, seeing Alan Smith wearing a captain’s armband is like seeing Michelle McManus wearing a bikini – it just looks all wrong.

When leading the team against Stoke in the FA Cup, Smith’s "playing with passion" mentality was encapsulated in all its ineffectiveness in his only memorable contribution to the game. With no one within 10 yards of him, Smith slid for the ball as if trying to kick the valve out of it, missed it and was left on his arse as Stoke launched a dangerous counter-attack.

But Smith is only one of many players who are supposedly passionate, when in reality they are anything but.

We have all seen players kiss their badge or sprint over to the corner flag to get into the forefront of camera shots of goal celebrations. We’ve all read about players who insist they want to stay at a club for life while in the background their contract negotiations are dragged out over image rights and several more thousands of pounds a week.

And far too often we see players squaring up to a ref when he dares give a decision against their team. Is this passion? No. Passion isn’t about gaining publicity, greed or having a spoilt kid tantrum. Passion has never been about self-interest.

So when England play France tonight, let’s drop the tub-thumping, roll-up-the-sleeves-and-get-into-them attitude. This isn’t a war - we’re not fighting the evil Hun or ruling an empire any more. This is football, and it’s something we’ve not been successful at for 42 years.

So let’s back Capello for taking a different approach to games. And, most of all, let’s stop being "passionate". Let’s be winners for a change.