10 Reasons England Will Win The World Cup 2014

By Sam Heard /

7. The Liverpool Effect

For the first time in recent memory the team feels like it is built up of a core-unit of players who actually have a decent amount of experience playing alongside each other. Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson and Glen Johnson were all part of Liverpool€™s valiant 2013/14 season which was painfully close to earning them a league title. Not knowing how to play effectively with one another has long been a criticism levelled against England€™s national side. With this backbone of players who are comfortable with one another, we can expect more squad synergy than displayed in previous years. The importance of having a core of Liverpool players has €“ somewhat optimistically €“ been analysed by Deutsche Bank analysts, featured in the Guardian:
The last time England had so many Liverpool players in the team, it won. Therefore, we are confident that England will win this World Cup.
While we€™re not entirely persuaded by this leap in logic, it is still nice to know how pivotal Liverpool players have been to England€™s World Cup efforts in the past. This year€™s offering of Scouse-squad-members combine passing ability, speed (minus Stevie G) and technique to boost the squad€™s chances of success enormously. In particular Raheem Sterling looks promising €“ he will look to use his excessive pace, goal-scoring ability and arsenal of skills to assist the team on the counter-attack. His style will also likely be favoured by the Brazilian home fans. Rather more indirectly, it was arguably Liverpool€™s excessive use of Suarez in the 2013/14 season which led to the Uruguayan€™s knee injury. Though he is likely to still appear at the World Cup, Liverpool has perhaps done England yet another favour.