Jack Wilshere is typical of the type of footballer we love to despise in this country.
He was expected to become to next Andres Iniesta, and so naturally now by that measurement, no matter what he does – he’s shit.
He is prone to doing and saying some fairly stupid things… too many to list.
And that’s probably all tied into the key factor that, as a symptom of being in a football academy since the age of nine, he doesn’t match our expectations of how educated and measured our national icons should be, or how we want role models for our children to act and look.
Wilshere is the kind of bloke who – if he wasn’t playing football – would drape his entire house in various size versions of the St George’s Cross, perhaps throw in a couple of Union Flags for good measure. He’d head out to a pub within close proximity to his house to watch the match with people he sees every day on the high street.
Actually, that’s wrong. He’d be out in France, regardless of whether he has a ticket for any of the matches, wearing this year’s replica England shirt and a Madchester sunhat.
But as it stands, against all the odds, he is actually in the England squad for Euro 2016.
And he’ll be all over the press for the entire tournament, even if he doesn’t play.
Today he’s taken “a pop” at Wales, claiming Wales don’t like England, and England dislike them back. This was in response to some far more inflammatory remarks from Gareth Bale, who went to the point of claiming England lack passion.
But as a character, Gareth Bale sits well with us – even in England – because he’s quiet, measured, and “he lets his football do the talking”.
And that’s great, it really is. I’d like to be mates with Gareth Bale. He’s one of the best players in the world, and clearly a better footballer than Jack Wilshere.
But, honestly… I can’t believe I’m about to type this and admit it publicly… I’ve got more time for Jack Wilshere.
We need our footballers to be the kind of people we’d get on with.
We need more footballers like Jack Wilshere, players from towns in the middle of fucking nowhere somewhere north of London but south of anywhere else resembling civilisation.
Players who, despite having played in a central midfield role alongside one of their best mates who just so happens to be Welsh, for almost 10 years, are prepared to come out in the midst of an international tournament and admit that… actually, they don’t like the Welsh.
The press in this country will never stop criticising players like Jack Wilshere and Dele Alli for being hot headed, but they’ll also never stop criticising the national team for lacking abstract traits like “pride” and “passion”.
At some point in my career, I’ve probably done one – or both – of those things, because it’s easy, and it’s lazy, and when you’re an England fan who’s angry that they’ve let you down again, and who also just so happens to be a journalist, it’s hard not to let that anger get the better of you.
But let’s not criticise Jack Wilshere for possessing some of the traits that English national football has desperately lacked for the past two decades.
If every player on the pitch had Wilshere’s mentality, we’d get to the semi-finals of the tournament and then gloriously be chucked out by Italy after having two of our midfield sent off, and losing by a single goal.
And given what happened against Russia, and what’s happened at every single major tournament in my memory since 2002, that’d be a vast, vast improvement on watching a timid, meek England side scared shitless to let their country down; scared shitless of what the papers will write about them in the morning.
Wilshere genuinely does not care what any of us write about him, he’s seen it all before anyway.
Based on match fitness, and form, Wilshere would struggle to make a case to be picked in England’s starting XI. But if he’s the guy in the dressing room this week winding all the other players up about what Gareth Bale’s said about them in the media, then we might see something just a little bit more fucking special than what we saw on Saturday.
Welsh and English fans want to see something special, and it feels like the Welsh players get that.
It’s probably easier for them, there’s much less criticism around their faults, and while Wales quietly believe they can go far in this tournament (for good reason), they will still be heroes if they don’t – because at least they managed to get there in the first place.
I guess what I’m saying is… if we’re going to fail, let’s fail spectacularly, instead of, once again, failing miserably.
