5 golden generations who never won the World Cup

#3 England (2001-2010)

The supremacy of this golden generation was restricted to the club level

The most underachieving golden generation the world has ever seen must be the England national team. They never even came close to living up to the expectations of England, as well as fans of the Premier league. The generation hit rock-bottom when they unexpectedly failed to qualify for 2008 Euro Cup.

In the last decade, English national team has consisted of players like David Beckham, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, John Terry, David James, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville and a lot more.

They were all legends at the club level, but never replicated their club level heroics for the national team. Some pundits blame this failure to the club level animosity among the players, and many fans agree with the sentiment.

On England's golden generation, recently Pep Guardiola went on to say "I could not imagine the generation of Lampard, Carrick, Scholes, Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand were not able to do something more. As a spectator, I don't understand."

Rio Ferdinand claimed that the pressure of the 'Golden Generation' tag had a negative effect on the players, restricting their ability to perform to their full potential for the national team.

"It upped the expectations because people called us the Golden Generation and people expected us to win silverware. We had the players capable, but never set up in the right way," he said. " It was a combination of things. The system was not right. I don't think we played with freedom in an England shirt. We were trying to stop teams all the time."

Sadly, he is right.