An obscure American medical college once published a report on White Coat Syndrome which showed that some patients become ill just by going to see a doctor. Perhaps it's time for that study to be extended to White Shirtitis, the condition so many England players have suffered from over the years.
This is the ailment that reduces David Beckham from a worldbeater for Manchester United to a player with the finesse of a panelbeater when England needed him in Warsaw. Why did Steve McManaman play like an inexperienced schoolboy against Poland when Real Madrid believe he's worth a couple of million pounds in salary per year?
The same question can be asked of Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes and, of course, David Batty. Run through most of the team that began Wednesday's European Championship game and you will find a collection of men who inexplicably under-achieved. There were two notable exceptions: Stuart Pearce, as committed to the cause as ever at the age of 37, and Tony Adams, a touch younger, and making up for a lack of puff by reading the game so well.
Pearce and Adams must have watched the so-called playmakers further upfield with amazement. One certain penalty claim that the Austrian referee ignored can be pointed to, but England were reduced to clutching at brittle pieces of straws.
There have been moments over the last decade when England teams have gelled. Possibly the best example was that marvellous victory over the Dutch at Wembley during Euro 96, a tournament Terry Venables and his squad didn't need to qualify for.
And then there have been night's like Wednesday in Warsaw when England looked disjointed, when legs refused to carry out the simplest of instructions from their brains. Suddenly the last weekend's six-goal bashing of Luxembourg was put firmly into perspective.
How often has a picture of an England coach with his head buried in his hands appeared on the back pages of England's newspapers? Bobby Robson had that haunted look many a time and Graham Taylor often looked like his head was about to explode with the build-up of anxiety and frustration. Even Venables, who largely enjoyed good press, had many moments when the team didn't perform for him.
Glenn Hoddle suffered greatly as well, his face full of frowns and fear. Yesterday morning there was the same pose with the same pressures, but this time it was Kevin Keegan.
If England fail to qualify for Euro 2000 the football phone-ins will intensify their claims that England's national team is hopeless because of an age-old sickness, Coach-is-crap-itis. Keegan is a decent man. He is one of English football's great enthusiasts who works hard at gaining a rapport with his squad and, let's face it, who else do you want? The crucial statistic is that Keegan, or whoever else oversees the national team, only has about one in three Premiership or League players to select from. The others are either too old, too bad or don't qualify.
And it is doubly galling to know that some of these foreigners will decide if England make it to the play-offs, players such as Arsenal's Fredrik Ljungberg.
It is just a crying shame that qualification is now in the hands of Sweden and some mediocre foreign players when England's homegrown stars should have ensured that their nation won the group by a distance, whoever was coaching them.
