This nation needs to rapidly shake off its obsession with the cult of personality.

Everyday the tabloids waste yards of column inches on celebrities, and literally miles of shelf space is taken up in supermarkets and newsagents with inane blathering about which soap star might be considering changing her hair colour.

Sadly we seem to be running our national football team at something approaching the same level.

Prior to the 2-1 defeat by Italy in Manaus so many pundits and experts were agonising over what had to be done about Andrea Pirlo.

This happened to the extent that England manager Roy Hodgson made a public pronouncement that the Juventus playmaker had to be stopped.

Admittedly Pirlo, who has over 100 caps for Italy, is a very classy performer, but this is the same player who for many years was viewed as being the support act to Alessandro Del Piero.

But England bought into the cult of personality and completely forgot that Italy had a few more other talented players on the pitch and allowed Matteo Darmian and Antonio Candreva to pose the real threat on the right and assist in producing the winning goal for that huge fan of bonfire night Mario Balotelli.

In defeat England then slumped into the negative side of the cult of personality.

Which England player should we blame? Well why not have a huge debate about the effectiveness and future of Wayne Rooney.

By the end of Sunday I had banned anyone in my house from switching on Radio Five Live, whose programming for the day consisted of asking anyone who got on air – whether they be expert or a member of the public struggling to recover what might be termed ‘a late night’ – where they thought Rooney should play.

Sadly not one of these contributors had the wit or cheek to suggest that Salford United’s podgy Scouse striker should be played left back ... yeah left back in the dressing room!

However, now we look ahead to tomorrow night and the ‘must-win’ clash against Uruguay.

Are the media now concentrating on how best England can create a team unit to see off the South Americans, no instead two words pervade report after report – Luis Suarez.

As a nation we are now being told to be obsessed by the fitness of the Liverpool striker and whether he will face Hodgson’s Heroes.

I have to admit Suarez was a force of nature at times for the Anfield boys in the last Premier League campaign, but to read some reports you would think he could beat England single-handedly despite having his injured leg removed and replaced with a wooden stump, and having taken to wearing an eye patch while balancing a parrot on his shoulder.

Fortunately for England the evidence of Uruguay’s 3-1 defeat to Costa Rica suggests that – unlike the Azzurri – La Celeste are possibly more of a one-man band.

Certainly Edinson Cavana and Diego Forlán were far from threatening in attack, while Maxi Pereira showed that some of the Uruguay squad are staunch traditionalists and got sent off for a vicious and unnecessary foul – thus counting himself out of the meeting with England.

Sadly Hodgson has been drawn in again and suggested that Suarez may be some way off proving himself to be a genuine world class player.

To me these are odd tactics trying to wind up a player who is generally fairly highly-strung.

It is to be hoped that Hodgson only suffers a bite on the arm as the teams enter the field, rather than ‘El Pistolero’ deciding to show he can be a top performer on the world stage by rattling in a hat-trick.

I know this is a forlorn hope, but can we as a nation try to get to the end of this tournament – at whatever round that happens to be – by concentrating on what England’s team can do to beat the opposing team and refrain from the distractions of either pumping up or shooting down individuals on either side of the equation.

I must admit I think I am wasting my time – anyone interested in Joel Campbell’s life story?

Click here to take you back to more Sports news.

Want to read, watch and hear more? You can download the FREE Examiner Apple App here, the FREE Examiner Android App here or you can view the paper as an e-edition on your Apple, Android or Kindle device by clicking here

To follow us on Twitter click here