We have had to. British fans would probably rather watch good British players than good foreigners. But there can be very few now who think that the British style of football is best. The traditional game is dying out, the victim of a sort of cultural Darwinism. The continental way has proved more efficient, more modern.
Football is only a game.
The problem is that most of us have little idea what these merits are. British tabloid newspapers, radio stations and television channels do not give European issues much of an airing. I fly regularly to the Netherlands and I am always struck, on returning to Britain, how lowbrow most British news is. The Dutch newspapers are full of technocratic debates about interest rates or social security benefit levels for 2004. The front pages of British newspapers, once devoted to Conservative sex scandals and Princess Diana, now feature David Beckham and Posh Spice, Paul Gascoigne or David Ginola.