England's striker Wayne Rooney reacts during Group C first round 2010 World Cup football match on June 18, 2010 at Green Point stadium in Cape Town. Getty Images / PHILIPPE DESMAZESPHILIPPE DESMAZES/Getty Images
Let us now fall back on that old national stand-by, the hockey analogy - promise it will be the only time during this World Cup - to help explain England's current dire predicament.
When Sidney Crosby plays for Canada in the Olympics, or Alexander Ovechkin for Russia, their supporting cast is better than the one that surrounds them on their teams in the diluted, salary-cap-levelled environment of the NHL. They ought to shine brighter in that context, playing with those whose abilities more closely match their own.
When Wayne Rooney or Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard (even in a down year for Liverpool) put on their country's uniform in an international tournament, the exact opposite is true.
They are taking a step backward.
The top teams in the English Premier League feature a stellar international cast, and for them money is no object. At Chelsea or Manchester United, the best are surrounded by more of the best, regardless of what it says on their passport. Those clubs, and Barca and Real Madrid and Inter and AC Milan, are the sport's true all-star teams.
To a degree that's the truth for every national side here (though you could perhaps make counter arguments when it comes to Argentina, or Spain, or Brazil) but it's with England right now that the inability to make the most of a few elite players is becoming so painfully obvious.
Specifically, Rooney, who this past season was one of the best three or four footballers on the planet, a goal-scoring machine dangerous anytime he was given a little space to operate. In this World Cup he has absolutely disappeared through two matches as though David Copperfield were somehow involved.
Even Pele and Maradona wouldn't have been able to accomplish much surrounded by a bunch of donkeys. Rooney isn't them and the rest of the England squad isn't that, but the fact that he could go through two entire matches without once taking a ball in stride, heading for the opposing goal, tells you that this isn't working at all.
Friday at the Green Point Stadium, England took on Algeria understanding that the other principles in Group C, Slovenia and the United States, had just played a wild, cracker of a match that finished in a 2-2 draw after the Americans were robbed of what should have been the winning goal by a refereeing error. That left the Slovenians, representing the smallest country in the tournament, all alone on top with four points, the Americans still very much in contention with two, and England with a chance to make a statement.
A convincing victory, a goal or three and all would seem right with the world, the awkward opening draw with the U.S. merely a feeling out, get acclimatized round.
Instead, Gerrard's tally in the opening moments of the U.S. game remains England's only score of the tournament. Through 90-plus minutes of goalless draw last night, they had precisely one full chance - a shot in the first half from inside the area by Frank Lampard that was saved rather routinely by the Algerian keeper Rais M'Bolhi.
That was one more chance than the Algerians had, which perhaps should count for something. But what will be remembered is the fact that a side tipped to be at least a semi-finalist here was made to look ordinary by a group who were organized and disciplined and energetic, but in the grand scheme of things nothing special.
If the guys in white represented another nation, if the guy wearing No. 10 were some anonymous striker, they'd be written off as mediocrities.
Right now, nothing about them adds up, and already the post-mortem has begun, even though there's still a pulse. Is Rooney really fit? Are some of the players worn out after such long club seasons? Did Fabio Capello make mistakes selecting the squad, or in leaving Gerrard and Lampard to try to co-exist in the midfield? For a manager who is supposed to focus on preparation, who leaves nothing to chance, why do his players look like they've never met before? Where's Joe Cole?
And where's the confidence, where's the swagger, which should have been so much in evidence after a great qualifying campaign?
At the final whistles last night, that wasn't "Roo-ney" the English supporters were chanting. Those were boos, plain and simple, and the striker, judging by his reaction walking off the pitch, didn't take them very well. Still with all of their finger pointing and pantomimes of frustration and moments near the end when their shoulders slumped and they just stopped trying, the England players didn't really seem to disagree with the verdict of the chorus.
They couldn't, at least with a clear conscience. If only the fix were as obvious as what is wrong.