England has some great individual players, but history shows that this fact is not so important in championships (see current European champion Greece). Furthermore current national teams of Netherlands, France & Italy can easily compete with England regarding individual world class (and these three had huge problems in the qualifyings).
From 30 years of watching each World/European championship, I developed a personal explanation:
Despite England's 1966 world championship title the English national team for some reason missed to develop some sort of "heritage" of FIFA/UEFA championship success (I cannot express it better in English). You need ONE absolutely unexpexted or outstanding breakthrough success and your chances to succeed in the future might increase.
In Germany, each national team will always and ever be measured against the world championship titles & teams of (especially) 1954 and (to a lesser extent) 1974 - both considered at home as outstanding successes as in both cases the opponents in the finals (Hungary, Netherlands) were the world's best teams in the respective years and therefore the favorites. The German national teams of recent years are never measured against the 1990 world title and not against the three European titles, as these titles were not considered as nearly as unexpected as 1954 and 1974. This heritage and mental hurdle exerts alot of pressure on all involved players and coaches, but it also helps building up some kind of championship spirit (it does not work automatically and always of course, see Germany's "performance" in 2004 Euros, but it helps alot).
The same goes for
- Brazil (always measured against the three titles during the Pelé era 1958-1970)
- Argentina (measured against cathartic world cup title during dictatorship in 1978 and Maradona's 1986 title)
- Italy (extreme pressure over decades on Italian national teams until they finally won their 3rd world cup title after 44 years in 1982 and their 4th title another 24 years later in 2006)
- even France will now always be measured at home against their outstanding titles in 1998/Zidane (world) and 1984/Platini (Europe)
Following my explanation, maybe England's 1966 world cup title was not considered unexpected or "outstanding" enough at home to build up a "heritage" or obligation for future teams. Spain has exactly the same problem, by the way. Although they always had great national teams, Spain's only title so far is European championship from 1964. Maybe this year.
