In the John le Carre novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy* the mole in British Intelligence is finally unmasked, and when asked why he betrayed his nation to the Soviets, Le Carre gives him a response something along the lines of: “We were bred to empire … and it was gone before it was our turn.”

That is, they mole’s generation grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, when England/Britain … still owned an empire upon which the sun never set, but by the time World War II was over, it was clear they had become a second-rate power. Even the bright boys with the right schools and connections were doomed to playing limited global roles — and in his bitterness, the mole turned on his native land.

A similar sort of decline in preemince has occurred in English soccer, which we are seeing played out in the current World Cup, and it has to be hard, very hard, for England fans to take.

If they didn’t invent the game (and they almost certainly did), they were the great popularizers of it throughout the empire (and, hence, around the world), and for a century or so they could believe no one did it better.

That stance was eroded by the World Cup, when it resumed in 1950, and England did not win it right off, nor in 1954, 1958 or 1962.

They did win it, at home, in 1966, defeating West Germany 4-2 in the final.

Since then … well, it’s harder and harder for England fans to convince themselves they are world soccer leaders.

Mostly, they clutch on to the Premier League, undoubtedly the world’s most successful and popular domestic soccer league, but even that is what they might call a “poisoned chalice”.

The Premier League collects many of the world’s greatest players, but each time another import turns up with a Premier League club, another Englishman is denied a place in the league.

England’s league is so successful, so competitive, it is too good for most English players. Last year, the BBC reported that only 32.3 percent of the players in England’s league were English. A record low, which can be compared to Spain’s 59 percent Spaniards and Germany’s 50 percent Germans.

What’s worse, England’s second tier, the Championship, is successful enough that potentially really good English players often land down there, or even another level lower, League One. The wages are good enough, and they get to stay “home” … even if would be better for them — and for the national team — if they left the country and played for one of the slightly lesser European leagues, in France or Spain or the Netherlands, and were exposed to continental competition on a daily basis. Soccer at least different to what they know. But they almost never do. The most prominent English player playing overseas recently probably was Joey Barton, in France, and Barton isn’t really very good.

Which all is preamble to this: England lost 2-1 to Luis Suarez, who plays for Liverpool, and Uruguay tonight, and for the first time since 1958 are faced with not surviving the first round of competition — not counting 1974, 1978 and 1994, when they didn’t quality for the tournament.

It has led to the usual English self-loathing and eloquent criticism perhaps best summed up by the Facebook entry of Stephen Cutts, who wrote: “It’s about time we invented another new game … that we can be best at for a hundred years until the rest of the world overtakes us again.”

You can feel the pain and the frustration in the first paragraph in the story by The Guardian’s correspondent: “After four years of planning, all that emotional commitment and anticipation, England’s World Cup has unravelled in the space of five days and the defining image will be of Luis Suarez, on the floor, weeping with joy after the goals that had opened the door to show Roy Hodgson’s team the way out. It is the first time England have lost their first two games and if, or rather when, everything is confirmed it will be an ignominious way to go.”

Andy Mitten, an Englishman writing for The National, assessed it in another way: “All 11 of England’s players ply their trade in a league which bills itself as the best on the planet, yet plays host to a consistently underachieving national team for whom disappointment has become the norm.”

Granted, England is in the Group of Death (A), and suffered successive 2-1 defeats to Italy and Uruguay, very serious footballing nations, who have won multiple World Cups.

(Group of Death (B) is Germany, Portugal, the U.S. and Ghana.)

Still, the English believe they should have taken at least a point from one of those games, having been tied at 1-1 in both (and one of the beating-ourselves-up memes tonight is that England should have bunkered in, after Wayne Rooney scored, and secured the draw, hoping a tidy victory over Costa Rica would send them the second round).

And Steven Gerrard, the captain who rued that England did not score more goals, has been identified as the man who failed to head away a long ball, which instead fell to Suarez, who went in for the decisive goal. Another aspect of England in the World Cup — blame is assessed and tends to adhere.

I am surprised it turned out like this. Perhaps I, too, have been watching the Premier League too long now and assume the top 23 English players, even from a smaller pool in the top flight, ought to be able to get out of the group. In a podcast of predictions by The National sports staff, I chose England as the “surprise” team of the tournament, and had them reaching the quarterfinals.

Even the defeat to Italy, the Amazon jungle city of Manaus, gave reason for hope, because so many good young players looked spritely and talented. But no.

English fans have given this far more thought than I have, and my notions of why they struggle in the World Cup are probably not novel on any level, but here they are.

–England does not produce technically gifted players. Is it a function of a system that emphasizes speed and endurance and a level of physical strength … while neglecting the sort of footwork normally associated with Latin countries? Perhaps so. At any rate, don’t look for an English player to dribble through five guys.

–English football remains too insular. Not its league, certainly, which has players from everywhere, but the unwillingness of England players to play in the top leagues of other countries, when they certainly are good enough. It seems strange that the country that colonized half the world now seems to produce players unwilling to leave home, but that is what has happened.

–The grind of the domestic game. A good case can be made that the 38-match Premier League season, plus the FA Cup, plus the League Cup, plus the Champions League, which can mean an extra eight or 10 or 12 elite matches … just wears out England’s players, and when they are sent to this extra tournament, once every four years, they often seem to be jaded, exhausted and jumpy — prepared to flinch at the criciticsm from the latest failure.

In several ways, the U.S. national team has it easy. No serious U.S. fan expects them to win a World Cup. Not for decades to come. No serious fan sees any U.S. team (and especially this one) in the semifinals. The quarterfinals seems about the limit of dreamers (as opposed to mad men), but in England, a failure to get to the final four is dissected and referred to for decades.

To be sure, England is not out of this tournament. If Italy defeats Costa Rica tonight by a few goals, and Uruguay loses to Italy and England beats Costa Rica, that is a three-way tie for second with three points, and England could win the tiebreaker, if they beat Costa Rica by a hefty margin.

Far stranger things have happened, but it’s not the way to bet, and I feel badly for England fans.

Maybe it is time for a new game. Quidditch, maybe, already played at one school, albeit fictional. A sport England can dominate for the next century, because about all they can aspire to in soccer, in anno 2014, is a place somewhere among the world’s top dozen teams. But not one of those who is going to win a World Cup.

* Spoiler alert: Don’t read the wiki entry too closely, if you intend to read the book, which I recommend, because it reveals the name of the traitor.