Last month we witnessed the traditional media cycle surrounding an England performance at a major sporting tournament:
- Moderate expectations based upon a modest qualifying performance;
- A gradual build up of excitement and hype as the tournament approaches;
- A growing chorus of opinion from 'expert' commentators (normally ex-players) that we can or even should win;
- Inevitable disappointment at a performance that doesn't live up to the billing;
- A backlash of hatred and contempt for the over-hyped, under-delivering players;
- A promise to ourselves - both media and public alike - that we will never get trapped in this cycle again.
This whole cycle is a perfect conspiracy between the media and the punters - none of us really believes England can win, but it's almost as if it's no fun if we don't go into a tournament with that bizarre idea in our heads.
Repeat for 44 years in an unending whirlwind of self-loathing and misery.
So after the debacle of the 2010 World Cup, we heard the usual cynical and sarcastic comments from disillusioned journalists about Englands "golden generation" - a phrase ominously nicked from another country (Portgual) whose golden generation didn't win anything either.
Never again, the newspapers tutted, would we wheel out such a hubristic phrase. Let's keep expectations more realistic next time. So it was good to see the Daily Mail yesterday beginning the cycle all over again for the biggest sporting event in Britain's history - the 2012 London Olympics.
"Spotlight falls on our golden generation with two years to go," reads the headline.
Nothing can go wrong here then, eh?
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