So how do we build a World Cup challenging football team? Where do you start?
Or do we already possess the players to have done so?
Well, I don't believe the latter any more. We simply do not possess the required quality to go beyond the Quarter Finals. This is quite a shift in opinion for me and I do have to make an apology to a friend whom always reasoned differently to me.
I honestly believed that we had enough about us to go all the way - and unashamedly have done ever since Euro 96 (when, arguably, we had a very pedestrian and unspectacular group of players).
As mentioned before, our biggest failing is a lack of technique. Now, this viewpoint has been subscribed to by many in the game for a long, long time. I'd noted it however I should have perhaps given it more credence than I did. After all, I'd experienced such a gulf of class first-hand.
I've witnessed teams from Germany, from Italy, from France and even from Nigeria play so expressively and in a manner that by far gazumps almost anything I've seen from an English team. The sad fact of the matter is that I'm actually referring to grass roots level - not professional.
I've spectated in awe at the ball being pinged from side to side effortlessly and naturally. I've seen teams where every player, no matter the position is comfortable on the ball. Beyond our island, it would appear, is a different philosophy of coaching. In fact, there is a different breeding programme for young footballers altogether.
In their culture, there are no stereotypical defenders, midfielders or attackers.
At the infamous Ajax academy it can be no more obvious. Until their teens, the young footballers are taught what they consider the basics. First and foremost they are instructed to enjoy the game (a far cry from what we've witnessed from a sometimes terrified, tense and tentative England national side). Furthermore, they develop the players technically and mentally before even a competitive ball has been kicked.
They don't play 11-aside until their teens and it certainly doesn't do them any harm; it focuses their players to concentrate on close control, technique and skills in a closed and compact space.
So it should come as a surprise that the Netherlands, a nation which boasts a little over 16m people have consistently produced top quality, international class footballers.
But it's not a surprise and we should take a look eastwards across the north sea and perhaps a little further beyond.
The same could be said for the likes of Croatia (4.4m population), Serbia (7.3m), Portugal (11.3m) and further afield on the South American continent in Chile (17m) and Uruguay (3.5m).
For me, the problem does go a little deeper than just the methods and practices of English football coaching.
It's also about the English pysche.
Beyond football, we have an ingrained and impassible drinking culture. It's what gets us through. We're sociable creatures so we're allowed a drink or two, right?
Of course you are, hell, even the Italians and French like a glass of vino or two. Yet they still produce technically gifted and incredibly rounded footballers like we produce empty pint glasses.
This isn't something that has just materialised though.
We've known about the differences between cultures for years. Every time England under achieves the same very points arise. That said, we've been told that we've looked across to our European neighbours and that we've studied them and applied their protocols. Everything, we're told, has already been implemented.
If that were the case then what exactly is going wrong? If we are producing players of enviable quality then why do teams in our top division ("The Best League In The World" allegedly) regularly field sides without an English footballer on an alarmingly frequent basis?
Once again all the evidence points towards a worrying lack of young English talent coming through.
But why? We've got better facilities in this country compared to many other countries around the world. In fact, we've got enviable facilities.
Sadly though, we've also got a drinking culture, Xbox's and junk food.
To compound this rather terrifying point I will also share a personal experience for which I will always remember.
At 15, I joined a local football club. My first ever competitive football club, I shone in one training match over many other trialists and was offered a contract to sign. I had to sign this inbetween the middle of a squad huddle to stop the prying eyes of the other players who were trialling at the time.
I guess you could call me a "coup" at the time.
My first and only for that club was, however, a complete disaster. All of the enjoyment and free spirit I'd expressed was forcibly coached out of me at every opportunity. My freedom was quashed and was simply told to kick the ball forward for the strikers to run onto.
The manager at the time soon discovered that I wasn't the player they were looking for. Incredibly, I will always remember when he first dropped me. "Ben" he said in front of my team mates "You won't be playing until you can kick the ball far enough and high enough".
I didn't realise at the time the actual gravity of the comment until my dad said "He said what? Right, we're going home!". Predictably stubborn, I stayed and perservered until the end of the season with brief and sporadic cameos from the bench. By then though, the love for my first club had fizzled out.
And so had my spark and natural instincts.
You just have to wonder though... How commonplace is this mentality in English football today?
Well it's still there. The "no frills" and "kick and rush" tactical masterclass lives, breathes and thrives on our fair island. We've made breakthrough's, yes... but as a country, have we done enough? No, we've haven't. We prefer a leg breaker to a luxury player. We villify flair players as "poofs" and idolise our "hardmen".
The same theory I mentioned above could also relate to one of the most common reasons why footballers are bombed out of our club's academies.
"You're not big enough" is normally valid enough reason for an under developed yet talented youngster to have his youth contract terminated.
You have to wonder how many young players have drifted from football because of such a reason. Worse still - how many of them could have played at the very top level?
Worrying, a young Leo Messi and his 5"5 slight frame would probably count against him from our perspective.
We have to move along from every mother, father and brother acting as the coach. We have to banish touchline experts at grassroots level screaming to "do him" and "clear it anywhere".
Those instructions are not from those who should be championed as role models. They are the inane, useless ramblings from idiots.
Unfortunately, such a major overhaul will take serious time. We've dallied over a national coaching centre. Conversely, France have had their world-renowned Clairfontaine since 1988. In the meantime, they have built another eight facilities of similar ilk.
Whilst our professionals were smoking and boozing, the continent's finest have been dining on a fine and sensible diet of serious exercise and fresh, healthy food. Whilst they've been innovating and improving we've been relying on brawn and forgetting the brain.
Above is a shocking indictment to how we run the game in our country. It has got to change. It must change. We have to do more and we really do have to apply a different philosophy and mentality when it comes to developing players of the future.
My biggest concern is how do we do it when we have a culture that does so much to stifle it?
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