you know there are a lot of countries that play football right?
Like alot.
Fair to say - a shed load...
Out of those, england is not the best, no.. maybe once for a short period, and maybe for a number of times they have been in the top 4 nations, or top 8 nations... but certianly not the best..
But there are a LOT of countries that play football.. and a lot that have played football for many years..
Its like saying murray was bad at tennis before he won his first Grand Slam... he was still 4th in the world, but could never quite perform in the big tournements.. he got far a number of times, and was always there or there-about but never quite did amazingly well.. No one would claim he was rubbish though - he was in the top 10 players, out of hundreds..
Similar with england (though different sport structures, less tournements per year etc.) we are a good football nation, always in the top 10 or top 20 nations.. but ofcourse only 1 team can win, every 4/2 years.. so just being in the top 10 nations, is only going to win you the odd tournement every 40 years or so, maybe less...
By being in the top10/15/20 even 30, footballing nations makes you a good team.. it means your in the top ?% of footballing nations in the world...
Getting to the quarters of a WC as england have done 9 times, on your list of WC and Euros, makes you a good team.. it helps show your in the top8 of europe/world..
To argue that dispite this, england are not a good team.. is just silly..
Ofcourse they are not the best.. and I would say they are not one of the 'great' teams (brazil, germany, italy, argentina, france etc) - but I dont think anyone could sucesfully argue that they are bad..
Underachievers.. dissapointing.. boring.. there are many other words that could be argued for.. but in the grand scope of football, england are not a bad team.