A somewhat overlooked factor: Luck. International tournaments are won by single elimination games - in the case of the World Cup, four. Four wins in a row in a relatively low-scoring sport against the best the rest of the world has to offer. You have to be good but you also have to be a bit lucky. Unfortunately for England, they've rarely been particularly good and they've often been particularly unlucky.

Another common factor among many World Cup winners is a top flight national club league that produces the core of the national team and drives significant tactical or other innovation. That would give you (in their respective heydays) Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Spain. The Netherlands is missing - bad luck.

The Premiere league is commercially successful but isn't quite that sort of league. English clubs are regularly embarrassed by their top European competitors. There's not much incentive to fix this, though, since the league prints money as it is.