In 1998, England were coming off the back of a great Euro 96 and hopes were extremely high for the World Cup in France. The team had an injection of youth to mix with some of the older hands who starred two years earlier.
In the group campaign we had a certain 22/23 year old winger who all the talk was around as being a future great. He played almost every game and debate raged over his performances - it wasn't just talk of the fans but the press wrote hundreds of articles about him and his worth. He was England's saviour and devil wrapped up into one.
In future books written about this time period, we now know that he felt like he was under an enormous amount of pressure - that the whole country looked at him as some sort of magician who could wave a wand and they would win the World Cup. He was suffering from panic attacks and sleeplessness, his family in every paper constantly.
He missed the first two group games due to these problems and England performed terribly. The press savaged the manager, demanding why their hero/devil didn't play. The manager under this enormous pressure put him in for the third game where he scored his first England goal in a 2-0 win and England scraped through.
Now the pressure was overwhelming. He'd just "confirmed" that he was the magician that was going to save English football and the press felt vindicated as holding him up.
The next match he wasn't playing very well and in a stupid moment, kicked out at an opposition player and got sent off. He later describes this as all of the anger, frustration, disappointment, pressure and anxiety in one moment and the bottled overflowed. England went out.
The press savaged him accusing him of being a national traitor and a terrible player who sailed by on his good looks - the headline read "Ten English Lions, One Stupid Boy". The public hated him - they had burning effigys of him in the streets, sent death threats to his family and relentless booed him when he rejoined his club. He was voted as one of the worst Britons who had ever lived in a poll.
Three years later he was again the best player in England and a superstar who singlehandedly dragged us to WC qualification. He later played for Real Madrid, AC Milan and went on to be the biggest football who had ever lived. His talent no longer under question, the pressure gone.
The lesson here is that England's press cannot function without a victim to bully and the England fans cannot function without an easy option to why their superstars actually failed on the big scene. It has to be easy, something to point the finger at and absorb their rage. In 1998 it was famously Beckham, before him it was Graham Taylor and before him Paul Gascoigne. Since then we've had McClaren and Hodgson. Now it's Sterling's turn.
Every nice flick or goal will be met by his heroic English Lion nature. Every bad performance and he'll be the worst player in the world, the most hated Englishman and the victim of death threats and racist abuse.
England never win anything because they put so much pressure on their young players that they brow beat any bravery out of them. Then they play entirely with anxiety and safety rather than the passion and risk of their club teams. Then a new young player emerges who will change all of that...
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