(Football news) England is the place where football came to life and to this day it is still considered to be the country where people breathe football. A lot of the time English media is subject to criticism by foreign players and media. The most prominent example is when Luka Modric before facing England in the Euro 2020 talked about the English media hype saying that "Arrogance is not so much related to the players and to the national team but to the people around them, some of the journalists and commentators."

The Premier League is undoubtedly the most competitive and famous league in the world but sometimes things in England get way too much hype. One decent season or even less than that by a player in the Premier League gets a lot of hype all over the world while in other leagues it's not the case. There is a term in football called the English tax where England players tend to receive transfer fees which are way more than their worth like Jack Grealish and Harry Maguire. A player like Declan Rice, who has never played for a top team at the club level gets added into the bracket of extraordinary midfielders while someone like Pedri, Federico Valverde and Joshua Kimmich barely get a mention. This hype results in a lot of things but the main thing is delusion in England.

People in England always believe that the Premier League is the best in the world despite the fact that statically La Liga is superior. This season, West Ham and Leicester City were lauded in England for being great teams but they ended up getting knocked out of the European semi finals. West Ham were knocked out by Eintracht Frankfurt who are 11th in the Bundesliga while Leicester were knocked out by Roma who are 5th in the Serie A. Real Madrid defeated UCL champions Chelsea and Premier League champions Manchester City in their road to the UCL 2022 final but the British media majorly described it as luck. In both these games the Premier League teams were considered favourites despite the fact that Real Madrid are runaway leaders in the La Liga and Chelsea are not having a great season.

After Karim Benzema's hat-trick in Real Madrid's comeback win against PSG, former Manchester City player Micah Richards said that Benzema has convinced him that he is up there with Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski only in the last 6 months. There is a lot wrong with that statement in many ways. Karim Benzema when he was playing 2nd fiddle to Cristiano Ronaldo was still a great player who scored goals. He did it with France at the 2014 World Cup and in the Euro 2020. Since Ronaldo left in 2018, Benzema has been carrying Real Madrid single handedly in terms of goals. Using Harry Kane, who has never won a single trophy in his career as a benchmark for Benzema who has won everything there is to win in football is criminal. It does seem like media channels have made their choice of getting entertaining pundits who don't have much knowledge about football.

British Pundits often don't analyse foreign teams well as they don't watch competitions other than the Premier League. It wouldn't be wrong to say that they do indeed watch football with blinkers which is why their prediction of English dominance is often wrong. Jamie Carragher during an analysis of the 1st leg between PSG and Real Madrid said that Real have absolutely no chance of winning the UCL despite being La Liga leaders and yet they are in the finals. Players like Thiago and Thiago Silva got overhyped when they came to the Premier despite the fact that they were the exact same players when they played in other leagues before.

Before every major tournament, British Pundits always believe that England are favourites because they only watch the Premier League and hence think that the England squad is better. Apart from the last two tournaments, it has always resulted in heartbreak for England. Alan Shearer after England's shock Euro 2016 exit against Iceland said " We're blinded by our Premier League, we think it is the best in the world for talent but we're totally reliant on foreign players and foreign managers. We're not as good as we think we are." The statement at that time was true even though England can now genuinely be considered contenders for big tournaments. 

Also read: Why Real Madrid's legacy does not allow it's players to give up