Mentality: Key to Tournament Success or Failure
Why have England and Spain reached only three major soccer finals between them while Germany have played in 12?
Why do Sweden and Denmark generally do well at tournaments while Russia habitually qualify strongly and perform weakly?
Why have so many good Dutch sides failed to deliver while you can just about guarantee Italy reaching the knockout phase?
It is not always thus, but the above scenarios happen far too regularly for it to be coincidence.
In these days of cross-border footballers there are no secrets of tactics or technique, while the fitness levels should be broadly similar -- they nearly all train and play alongside and against each other in the modern game's multinational leagues.
Anyone selected to represent Germany in a major tournament would have been brought up seeing the country excel, particularly in the European Championship where they have reached five of the last eight finals.
Consequently, when Germany arrive, whatever their form, they expect to do well. The odd bad result or poor performance does not force knee-jerk reactions as the players have come to believe in their right to be battling it out in semi-finals and finals.
England have the opposite problem. A final is virgin territory -- none of the current squad were born when their compatriots reached and won their only major final, the 1966 World Cup on home soil.
A succession of home-grown coaches failed to break the cycle so the FA looked overseas and now hopes Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson, free of the historical baggage, will be able to convince the current crop of players that their destiny is not to go out bravely in a penalty shootout.
Greece went down the same route and have enjoyed immediate success as German Otto Rehhagel has led them into their first quarter-final.
"We are not going to Portugal as tourists," the Bundesliga veteran promised before the tournament, instilling a new belief in his squad that was evident from the first minute of their opening victory over Portugal.
Spain might have to think about a similarly radical move as their perennial under-achievement, which continued with Sunday's group stage exit, is now burned so deep into the national psyche as to be indelible. How many players from the Danish or Swedish squads would make Spain's first XI on paper? Yet those two small Scandinavian countries consistently punch above their weight in tournaments.
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