Steven Gerard recently said that England need to have some confidence and a winning attitude if they want to have a chance at the World Cup 2014.
Sometimes having the backing of a whole country can be a bad thing. In England this is always the case, too much pressure for the players but this argument doesn't make sense.
Does that mean countries like Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Germany don't have pressure to performan and win as well? If anything they have an unreal type of pressure and expectation. They are expected to challenge everytime they play. Even a team like Spain they have moved out of their former shell and became a powerhouse. In the 2008 tournament when they beat Italy, the team said they felt they could be the previously intimidating Italians and they did. That was the turning point for their team.
A team like England, they never seem to have the right confidence when it matters the most. The team seems to have the talent to win, there is no doubt about that. England's strengths in the past 10 years has been acknowledged to be their defence more than their offence. With Wayne Rooney emerging as a star in the Euro 2004, they finally had a striker to work with and he is definitely one of their leaders although England now have a nice array of younger talent to choose from in striker positions. Likewise their midfield is showing promise with a lot of young stars coming up and playing well AND with confidence.
Looking at some of the top teams in the tournament, the World Cup is one of the toughest to win. Look at what England have to get through to be a champion: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Germany. England will have to run into these teams at some point.