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Keeping Wayne Rooney as captain shows what's wrong with England

Sam Allardyce and Wayne Rooney
New manager Sam Allardyce is sticking with Wayne Rooney as England captain. (PA via AP)

It’s been a decade since England was anything remotely resembling a major soccer nation. In international soccer that is, of course, since the Premier League continues to go gangbusters and gobble up all the money and talent out there as it consolidates something beginning to resemble a monopoly on the sport’s club game.

Anyway, England: winners of one major tournament — 50 years ago — but somehow still under the impression that because it codified and popularized the sport, it retains a birthright to being really good at it.

They aren’t. And haven’t been for a while. The reason so few English players actually get on the field for the major English clubs isn’t because there are too many foreign players. It’s the opposite: There aren’t sufficient English players who are good enough.

The last time the Three Lions emitted anything recognizable as a roar was at the 2006 World Cup, on which occasion they reached the quarterfinals. They haven’t won a knockout-round game since. England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 altogether, were hammered by Germany 4-1 in the round of 16 at the 2010 World Cup, lost to Italy on penalties in the quarterfinals of Euro 2012, went winless and came dead last in its group at the 2014 World Cup and got bounced by puny Iceland in the round of 16 at this summer’s Euro.

Roy Hodgson, the overseer of the latter three failures, was shunted and replaced by Sam Allardyce, the very embodiment of the archaic and direct kick-and-rush style that had been holding the English back in the first place.

One of Allardyce’s first moves was to confirm that Wayne Rooney would remain his captain. And in one succinct action he has laid bare an awful lot of what is wrong with the English national team.

First, some credit to Rooney. He has matured into an apparently capable captain. His 53 goals for England are the most all-time. His 115 caps tie David Beckham for the most as a field player. And he seems a lock to break Peter Shilton’s all-time record of 125 England appearances. And Rooney is only 30 at that.

Yet hanging on to the Manchester United star, who has announced that he’ll stick around with England through the 2018 World Cup, reflects the program’s stagnation. In spite of failure after failure and a golden generation failing to improve on the semifinal place gained at Euro ’96, played on home turf, there has not yet been a reckoning of its shortcomings. Instead, the ongoing fallow period is ascribed to bad luck, details gotten wrong, or a weak mentality.

That time, and the game’s evolution, has just passed England by seems to occur to few. In spite of a promising generation of midfielders and forwards pushing through who have been molded in the modern high-pressing, up-tempo, quick-combination game now played at their elite English clubs — managed and staffed largely by more evolved foreigners — the national team remains stuck in something relatively antiquated.

That slow, deliberate game, funneling the ball out to the flanks and relying on subsequent crosses to score, hasn’t worked in some time. And Rooney, who has lost several steps from his days as a 16-year-old jitterbug, is the embodiment of that, largely specializing in sending lazy cross-field balls from deep in midfield these days.

Rooney retention as both a foundational player and England’s captain foretells Allardyce’s unwillingness to give his team its much-needed update. You don’t keep someone on as captain only to bench him and let him fade from the picture. But Rooney slows England down, both metaphorically and on the field.

He was a great player. Maybe England’s best ever. But he isn’t the best on its national team anymore. And by sticking with him, England is also clenching on to the past.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.