No one in their right mind would say that France and England don’t have great players. The problem is that most of them play the same position.

England’s three best attacking players are midfielders Steven Gerrard of Liverpool, Frank Lampard of Chelsea, and center forward Wayne Rooney of Manchester United. For their clubs, they patrol very similar real estate. Gerrard and Lampard like to play behind a single center forward, with two defensive midfielders behind them, while Rooney likes to run all over the midfield, link up play and dash into the box to collect a return pass.

Because this trio likes to do almost the exact same thing, their manager, Fabio Capello, has asked them all to compromise.

Give me Some Space

Lampard has been shunted into a deeper, defensive role, and when he comes upfield to look for goals, Rooney and the blundering Emile Heskey are in his way, which is why his shots all come from funny angles. Gerrard begins on the left, but has the freedom to go anywhere, which, in practice, means he gets in everyone else’s way, driving Rooney to peripheral positions by the sideline or the centerline. He keeps surrendering possession on the counter and waving his arms, but no one knows what he is doing or what his thinking is. At one point in the Algeria match, he and Gareth Barry, who are both left-sided players, made exactly the same run to the right sideline, where they stopped, traded glares, and Barry finally passed the ball back to the goalie. Lampard and Gerrard have been at odds for England their whole careers, and now their feud has poisoned Rooney. And that’s how three of Europe’s most prestigious players came to frown like cats in dresses all the time.

And What About France, then?

France has almost identical issues; they’re like a band with too many Ornette Colemans. Celebrity wingers Florent Malouda and Franck Ribery are both left-footed. Ribery was moved to an attacking center midfield role for the Mexico game, but he’s not exactly trenchant with the ball, and needs to run around for a while before he thinks of what to do. He’s one of the strongest runners in the world, but the other strongest runner is Florent Malouda. Against the Mexicans, Ribery ran into Malouda a couple times and then he simply quit. Malouda kept on going, to his credit, but it seemed he was encouraged to leave his position and pop up on the right, while everyone else had to stay in their channel. The balance was awful. That’s why it was simple for the Mexicans to make those long runs through the midfield: France had no one to pick them up, they had to keep on sprinting to cover all the openings they’d left.

Also: center forward Nicolas Anelka likes to get the ball thirty yards outside the box and run at the goal, like everyone else on France. (Just today, Anelka was sent for swearing at the coach.) What this team really needs is a guy who flicks the ball around and keeps it moving, and they have him in Yoann Gourcuff, but when Gourcuff started the Uruguay match, the players rebelled and wouldn’t pass to him. France don’t want a bureaucrat to divvy up possession; they all want the ball for themselves. It is terminally selfish.

Given these tactical ingredients, it just may not be possible for England and France to make a positive impression, while smaller, more harmonious teams like Mexico, whose balance is superior, may advance far beyond them in the tournament.