International week ... am I bovvered?

It's international week and you'll have to forgive me for feeling very indifferent towards it. When it comes to England internationals, Kelvin and I agree on one thing: we don't really care. Whenever the question has come up as to whether I'd prefer Charlton to win the league or England to win the World Cup (admittedly neither a likely prospect at the moment), it's really never been a dilemma. In fact, I would rather Charlton won the Carling Cup than England being crowned the greatest footballing nation in the world.

So what is it that drives my apathy towards the national team? I guess their poor form can't really help. Watching them grind out a 2-0 victory over Andorra on Saturday is as painful a watch as I can remember and, with the very rare exception such as the 5-1 thumping of Germany, it's been pretty much that way since a brief glimmer of hope in Euro '96. Managers have come and gone but the performances seem to have remained at the same level of mediocrity. Is it really that difficult to craft a team containing Gerrard, Beckham, Lampard, Rooney et al. into world beaters? Apparently so. My flatmate (who knows not very much about football) commented that the national team would perform better if it was stripped of the egos and was made up of lesser Premiership or Championship players. In some ways, he has a point.

I guess another thing which I get frustrated by is the media hysteria that surrounds England games. Never have so many column inches been devoted to such worthless comment and information. Remember Rooney's metatarsal break before the 2006 World Cup? Pretty difficult to forget it given the amount of coverage it got. It also pains me the way that everybody jumps on the footballing bandwagon and suddenly starts to think they know a thing or two about the beautiful game. People who have no interest in the game any other time of year have St. George's crosses flying from the car and are in the pubs shouting at the screen with their thoughts. This year's European Championship was a very enjoyable tournament if only for the fact that we didn't have to put up with any of this and were allowed to simply enjoy the football on show.

Perhaps I'm just a football snob but being a Charlton fan has always been a lot more satisfying than being an England fan. A fortnight without a Charlton fixture has seemed like an eternity and I'm very much looking forward to getting down to the Valley again at the weekend. In the mean time the England show rolls into Zagreb to try and conjure up a better performance than last time they played there, Paul Robinson making an absolute mess of things. I'll have one eye on it but my thoughts will already have turned to the Wolves game. Roll on 3pm Saturday …