Football is often at once aggravated but deeply enriched by the diametrically opposed forces of individual brilliance and collective unity. In England’s recent international history, these forces have become a seemingly permanent tension.
It was existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre sentiment that with radical freedom comes immense personal responsibility. While Sartre focused on individual responsibility, we can see echoes of this in football: individual brilliance shines briefly but leaves unresolved the team’s collective burden to sustain success. Players like Bellingham or for example Beckham before him, provided moments of brilliance whilst the responsibility of their entire team dynamic never found full-cohesion.
Similarly, Martin Heidegger’s reflections on finitude remind us that all actions are bound by limits. For Heidegger, human existence is shaped by an understanding of time and mortality, in short, every moment is finite. In football, Bellingham’s goal against Greece on Thursday evening, like Beckham’s famous free-kick two decades earlier, represents a fleeting moment of brilliance. England must now find a way to move beyond relying on isolated acts of brilliance, and instead construct a team that jointly encapsulates the separating individualism of Bellingham, Foden and Palmer.
Beckham’s free-kick against Greece was more than a moment of qualification—it became a cultural symbol. England’s fixation on individual heroes—from Beckham to Rooney to Bellingham—reflects a systemic issue in the way in which we create and conceptualise our teams. Highlighting the attitude of individualism, individual saviors, individual brilliance, orients and accentuates the cracks in a team struggling to find rhythm and collective strength.
Iceland and the End of Individualism
England’s next match against Iceland represents a symbolic crossroads. Iceland, the team that ousted England from Euro 2016, stands as a reminder of the power of collective strength. This match isn’t just another qualifier—it’s an opportunity for England to transcend its reliance on individual brilliance in front of a team that survives but sometimes excels through collectivity.
Farewells and Finitudes: A New Beginning?
The match against Iceland is about more than qualification—it moves toward the potential of multiple ends. Whether it’s the final chapter of Carsley’s interim tenure or the end of England’s reliance on individualism, the theme of farewells and finitudes are incoming or at the very least about to become dominant within the forthcoming months.
