The great thing about football is that it is a never-ending soap opera. One tournament draws to a conclusion and it’s not long before another begins. In a little over a week, the Under 19s European Championship gets underway with England playing a potentially tough trio of Austria, Holland and France and in around seven weeks, the senior side will begin their own European campaign towards 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.

So the drama is set to start all over again for the national side. Only this time there’s a different dynamic underlying it all; the 2010 World Cup debacle.

Capello’s capital with the British press is all but exhausted. This shouldn’t matter at all, after all, what does the press know about anything, but in England it really does matter. The tabloid press seems to dictate how many people think and a sustained campaign against a manager usually sees the FA cave in to what the tabloids would self-reverentially call ‘popular demand’ for a change.

Capello’s problem is that any poor result or even a poor performance is going to immediately lead to calls for his head. Opening games home to Bulgaria and away to Switzerland is exactly the kind of games that it’s easy to emerge with just one point from. If that’s the case, you can expect Capello’s position to be unsustainable.

He has to win both games convincingly, failure to do so will open so many wounds, that it will be fatal for him. He’s got to change the team, change the tactics and win impressively from the get go. That’s a big ask.

I’m all for Capello carrying on, figuring that if you no-one is allowed to learn from mistakes then England is doomed to repeat them over and over again. But I know how the media works in England and Capello is one step away from being a dead man walking.

He has the additional problem that players know this too. They can probably afford to lose a game and draw one and still qualify, Capello cannot. So what better way to get a manager that you don’t like, the sack? One hapless performance against Bulgaria could do it.

Capello must already be weighing up who amongst the playing staff are his allies and who are the enemies. He’s fortunate in that the public’s belief in the players is at an all time low and that given every England manager is appointed as the antidote to the previous one, there simply isn’t an English manager who commands enough respect, has enough top rank experience and isn’t mired in legal matters to obviously replace him.

The hysterical laughter that greeted the suggestion from The Sun’s Sean Custis to make Beckham manager may yet come back to haunt us all. There’s a scenario just around the corner where The FA, needing some positive headlines and lacking any credible candidate but pressured to replace a dastardly foreigner who is being berated by a feral tabloid media, turns to a much loved national figure to save the day. Believe me, it could happen, even though it would be certifiably bonkers.

Watching England’s national side has always been like watching a soap opera and I have strong feeling that some dramatic plot twists lie just around the corner. Perhaps we’ll wake up soon and discover the 2010 World Cup was all just a bad dream.

Gentleman, let us put away childish things.

Yes, international breaks can provide some godawful football.  Yes, it doesn’t seem fair for a player to risk injury for a team he plays with only five times a year and miss games for the club that employs him on a weekly basis.  Yes, nations like Lichtenstein don’t give much bang for your underdog dollar when facing Germany.

But to call international football boring, to curse the name of the foreign sounding manager who would dare call up your club star to represent the nation that raised him, to rant on whatever message board or blog that will let you about the inanity of Wales versus Finland, France versus Lithuania, is arrogant in the extreme.

Hatred for the international break comes from the same school of thought that calls for the abolishment of the Carling Cup, the FA Cup, and the speedy introduction of the European Super League.  If the same nations always seem to advance in international tournaments, the absurd logic goes, why not give them an automatic berth and have everyone else duke it out over the summer?

Well, for one, things change in international football, if maybe not fast enough for the club supporter who mentally erases the club season just as soon as it’s over.  Hungary were considered a global footballing power in the 1950s, along with Austria in the 1920s.  Yugoslavia, Denmark and Greece have more European Championships than England.  Hell, Uruguay twice as many World Cups as England.  Brazil was once considered small potatoes in South America, and Argentina didn’t participate in international tournaments for two decades out of fear of embarrassment.  Who’s to say Ivory Coast, South Korea, or even the United States won’t one day win a World Cup?

Sure, these are established footballing countries with ambitious national programs, but what about San Marino and the Faroe Islands?  These tiny nations are unlikely to take a national tournament by storm, but is it fair to take away the right of nations to compete in the most popular game on the planet just because you get a bit bored one Saturday or Wednesday out the season?  If you ask any professional footballer, they will often point to international caps as the highlight of their career.  It could be something curmudgeonly club-shirted punters, Best-Of DVDs in hand, might never understand.

It’s time for FIFA to rethink international football.

In 1992, UEFA changed the European Cup to the Champions League and transformed European club football into a more entertaining product that generates vast sums of money. It also didn’t hurt that the tournament now attracts a cumulative television audience of 4 billion viewers in 227 countries.

While club football in the form of the Champions League, Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga has flourished, international football has come far less important with each passing year. Sure, we football fans still love the massive tournaments such as the World Cup, Copa America and European Championships, but the rest of international football competitions are mundane and an inconvenience.

Take England, for example. Their first match in their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign kicked off last Saturday against Andorra. Between now and the next 14 months, England will play nine other matches against the likes of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Andorra and Croatia. Other than the home and away leg against Croatia, the list of future England matches hardly inspires any enthusiasm.

One of the main problems about international football is that other than the actual tournaments themselves, the qualifying matches and friendlies are – for the most part – dire. By increasing the number of teams that play in major tournaments and increasing the number of countries to participate in qualifying rounds, teams like England suffer a long and arduous process just to enter the World Cup and European Championships.

Sure, we shouldn’t take it for granted that teams like England should qualify for these tournaments, but there has to be a better system for reducing the length of the qualification process.

The way that internationals interrupt league football throughout the season is frustrating for football fans, players and the football managers and club owners. Everyone loses. Players are exhausted after flying halfway around the world and then are expected to come back and play club football the following Saturday. Fans are frustrated that the momentum from the start to the new season has been stopped, while club managers and owners do battle with football associations and national managers trying to find new ways to prevent their star players from competing in international games.

The solution is to cease the 14 month qualification process and replace it with a mini-tournament to determine which nations will qualify for the European Championships or World Cup. The mini-tournament would be held within the space of 30 days — thus allowing players and fans to watch teams compete to qualify for the major competitions. The solution would be more attractive to players, fans, club managers, owners and would hopefully appease the football associations.

I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, but I do believe that FIFA needs to look into changing international football to make it something we can believe in again. Hopefully they’ll do that before it’s too late, if it’s not too late already.

What do you think? Is international football fine the way it is, or should FIFA step in and rethink the way the qualification processes for tournaments are organized?

Ask any soccer fan about their favorite World Cup memory and you’ll immediately see a smile on their face and hear the enthusiasm in his or her voice. My favorite memory was my first World Cup when I saw Archie Gemmill go on that incredible run to score against Holland in 1978 in Argentina.

Over the years, the World Cup has become more about the experience and less about the football. There are many reasons for this, but a major one is the over-commercialization of the sport. UEFA’s European Football Championship is not immune to selling out soccer either, but the competition is far superior to the World Cup in many ways. Here’s my top five list of the reasons why the Euros are better than Copa Mundial:

1. No third place final. I’ve watched almost every World Cup match from 1978 to 2006, but in all of those years I think I’ve only watched the third place final once. The match is a waste of time for the players, the fans and the TV audience. Thank heavens UEFA skips this meaningless match.
2. Fewer teams competing. Sometimes less is more especially when you consider that Euro 2008 features 16 teams, while the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will feature 32. With 16 teams, you have the best teams who deserve to have qualified for the tournament. With 32, you usually end up with several minnows that get thrashed in the opening round and that don’t deserve to be there.
3. Better quality football overall. It used to be that you looked forward to the World Cup to see the contrasting styles of play and how the different countries displayed their football characteristics against other nations. But the game has become one giant melting pot and what comes out of the other end is a similar style of football played worldwide. As a result, the World Cup matches have become less interesting while the games involving European countries are more enjoyable to watch (Italy versus Spain, and France versus Romania aside).
4. Less burnout for players and fans. Every four years soccer fans get so excited at the prospect of the World Cup but due to the sheer number of games, TV watchers get burned out. There are only so many games on consecutive days that you can watch. And the same applies to players. After a long season, it’s difficult for footballers to maintain the highest levels at a World Cup. At least the Euros are much shorter and less physically stressful.
5. Less hype. The amount of media coverage of each World Cup is mindboggling. The hype builds up so much that it’s often impossible for the actual football games to live up to the expectations of the media and fans. In contrast, the European Football Championship generate lots of media exposure but nowhere near the levels that Copa Mundial produces.

Do you agree or disagree? Share your feedback by clicking the comments link below.

If you live in the United States and you have ESPN Classic on your satellite or cable package, you’re in for a treat over the next two weeks. Earlier today (Monday, May 26), ESPN Classic broadcasted the 1972 European Championship final between West Germany and USSR. If you’re like me, you missed it (ESPN Classic has no plans to show the matches again in the near future, so set your DVRs).

Thankfully, ESPN Classic has more European Championship Finals in store. Each weekday night at 7pm ET between now and the beginning of Euro 2008, the TV network will air all of the Euro finals from 1972 to 2004.

Here’s the schedule:

Monday, May 26, 7pm ET:
West Germany v USSR, 1972 Final

Tuesday, May 27, 7pm ET:
Czechoslovakia v West Germany, 1976 Final

Wednesday, May 28, 7pm ET:
West Germany v Belgium, 1980 Final

Thursday, May 29, 7pm ET:
Spain v France, 1984 Final, 1984 Final

Friday, May 30, 7pm ET:
Netherlands v Russia, 1988 Final

Monday, June 2, 7pm ET:
Denmark v Germany, 1992 Final

Tuesday, June 3, 7pm ET:
Germany v Czech Republic, 1996 Final

Wednesday, June 4, 7pm ET:
France v Italy, 2000 Final

Thursday, June 5, 7pm ET:
Portugal v Greece, 2004 Final