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SUNDAY’S World Cup final between Spain and Holland will hopefully be a great game but there won’t be many Premier League players on show.

In their respective semi-final victories, Holland kicked-off with Johnny Heitinga (Everton), Robin van Persie (Arsenal) and Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool), while the Spaniards didn’t name a single Premier League player in their starting line-up.

How can this possibly be, you may well ask.

After all, we are constantly told in this country ours is the best league in the world, although the managers of the two best teams in the world clearly think otherwise.

Germany were disappointing on Wednesday but it shouldn’t be forgotten they were probably the most exciting side to watch up until this point.

However, their chances of success were largely dismissed before the competition began because Chelsea’s Michael Ballack was injured and wouldn’t play.

The assumption being because he was the only name any of us would recognise as a Premier League player, the rest of the team must be no-hopers.

It is perhaps just another sign of the unbelievable delusion we suffer from in this country where football is concerned, virtually all of it inspired by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Sports and the wider media.

They promised us a “whole new ball game” in 1992 when the gimmick of changing the name from Division One to Premier League was announced by the advertising department of Sky, laughably one which was supposed to benefit the England team.

Well, things don’t look too promising 18 years on where the national side are concerned.

Sure there have been plenty of foreign players who have come in and raised the standard of our domestic game in the last 18 years.

But the downside is there are less opportunities for home-grown players in our top division and this has undoubtedly had a negative impact on the fortunes of the England side.

The Scots, Irish and Welsh may well be laughing now at England’s latest disaster but the last laugh has been on them because their own failure to even qualify is also a result of the foreign invasion of the top flight.

Scotland’s record in reaching the World Cup was actually quite impressive until 1998 but that was because so many of their players used to play for our top sides.

The Liverpool team which dominated the game in the 1970s and 1980s was filled with Scots, Welsh and Irish players but what chance do these people have of playing at that level these days?

Virtually none.

The fact that England, as the largest of the home nations in terms of population, are the only ones still reaching the big events is perhaps a sign of the wider malaise.

And what of those England players who failed so miserably this time around?

You might expect most of their clubs would be trying to renegotiate pay cuts on the back of their abysmal displays in South Africa but not a chance.

Wayne Rooney is laughably in line for a pay rise at Manchester United which will reportedly see his pay go up to £150,000 a week.

According to his boss Alex Ferguson, Potato Head had a poor World Cup because there was too much expectation placed on his shoulders in the build-up to the event.

That may well be true to a certain extent because he was England’s only genuine top-class player but it still doesn’t justify or explain why he was so bad when it really mattered.

Why should Rooney care anyway when he knew all along he was going to be quids in on his return regardless of how he performed?

Still, at least we’ve got the referee for the big game on Sunday.

That was obviously everyone’s main priority before the tournament began.

This column is produced by an independent writer and in no way reflects the official position of News Shopper or its parent company.

What do you think? How can the fortunes of the England team be improved? Has the success of the Premier League had a negative effect on the national side? Add your comments below.

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