The most downcast soccer fans in the world ”” relative to the quality of their national team ”” are the citizens of England.
Only 4 percent of English respondents named the home country when asked which team would win the World Cup, in a recent Upshot/YouGov study of 19 countries. Of the 19 countries, only respondents in Costa Rica, which doesn’t crack the top 25 in various world rankings, were so pessimistic.
We’re not pessimists. We are realists.
On a lighter note, there has been a lot of debate and some joshing here in the UK about what constitutes British values. Learning to queue (North American: stand in line) has been put forward in one. Another is learning to see your national team as valiant in defeat, beaten but unbowed, etc.