I have watched nearly every minute of England’s Euro 2012 campaign, and after looking at them for 270 minutes, what most impresses me about them is this:

They really are not very good.

I have watched scads of soccer since I got to the UAE. It’s what I primarily cover for The National. And since this is a “football” country … it’s all around you all the time.

The Premier League is particularly big here in the UAE, and Abu Dhabi Media, which owns The National, holds the regional TV rights to the Premier League. Thus, we are watching the Premier League all the time, and particularly in our newsroom, which skews British. And we cover it to death.

What you grasp about the Premier League is … how good it is. The bottom teams are decent, the middling teams are quite good and the top four or five clubs are excellent.

From top to bottom, it probably is the best league in the world, and most watched. Germany’s Bundesliga might be slightly better, collectively (at a far lower cost, and with far fewer people watching), and Real Madrid and Barcelona give Spain a truly elite top two. But overall … give me the Premier League.

What is astonishing, then, is to see the process of stripping away the non-English players from the Premier League.

You would assume England would have dozens, hundreds of really outstanding players from which to cobble an outstanding national team.

And you would be wrong.

To see this England team play is jolting. A reality check.

Those guys are slow. Aging. Ponderous. Inelegant. A collection of fairly ordinary athletes who seem to be slower than nearly anyone they play.

This is not the big and bruising England teams of a generation ago, playing long balls over the top (rather like Ireland still does), but they still are anything but nimble.

They treated France as if they were playing Spain, and kept eight behind the ball, in two ranks of four — and were happy for a 1-1 tie; it seemed clear that a draw was their goal. They opened up a little against Sweden, even older and perhaps slower, and won 3-2 after trailing 2-1.

They defeated Ukraine 1-0, though it should have been 1-1 after 90 minutes; a Ukraine goal was ignored, and John Terry was allowed to “clear” a ball that had gone over the goal line.

Win or draw against Ukraine, England still would have won their group. Which amazes me.

Let’s consider a few players.

Steven Gerrard is “only” 32 but looks like he must have college-age children. He has a face that seems to communicate “I’ve been out in the rain and cold of too many English winters.” And, well, he has: He began playing for Liverpool in 1998. He also has an odd body, a body you do not expect on an elite footballer. Heavy legs, a thick trunk.

The aforementioned John Terry often seems to be attempting to work his way out of trouble. And why not? The man is 31 and perhaps exhausted by chasing other men’s wives/girlfriends.

Joleon Lescott alleges to be 29 (30 in August), but he looks 40 and is about as nimble as a middle-aged footballer. Can we get a “birther” to check the circumstances of his origins?

Ashley Cole, greatest left back in the world, I always hear. In 2008, maybe.

England’s midfield, at the moment, seems to be shockingly pedestrian. Some collection of James Milner and Scott Parker and Ashley Young and Theo Walcott and Gerrard and the one “kid” — Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Who is their playmaker? Gerrard. Perhaps. Who can dance through defenses? Who can hold the ball in a crowded phone booth? Well, nobody.

And up top, they have Wayne Rooney. This guy is an elite scorer, for Manchester Ubited, anyway. But he is not an elite athlete. He had a clear path to the goal against Ukraine, and he was run down by defender in a 60-yard sprint. That should not happen to a world-class player.

He scored, earlier, but it was a sort of cleaning-up-the-trash goal, the back side of a cross that was deflected twice by Ukraine defenders, glanced off the hands of the keeper and was just hanging there in the air for Rooney to bump in.

(The one guy who scored a goal of real mental quickness is Danny Welbeck, against Sweden, but he seems a complimentary player.)

A sort of mental game I play, with soccer teams, is this: If these two teams of 11 had a track meet, who would win? England almost never wins these fantasy track meets. Who on this England team would win a sprint? Who would win a 10K? Who could win the high jump or the pole vault?

I grasp that this, that and the other England guy is hurt or busy or otherwise unavailable, but I just assumed England’s national team went 3-4 teams deep. Everywhere. Like Brazil’s.

We Yanks are still celebrating the 1-1 result with the Three Lions at the World Cup in 2010 (and yes, England’s Robert Green had to save the shot that became U.S. a goal) … but now I am far less impressed by a draw against this team.

And, of course, as all England knows, they have not won a major competition since the 1966 World Cup. That is a long, long, long time ago. Masters of the Game, all that … and they can’t win anything. And to watch them closely is to understand why.

I suppose my surprise goes back to the Premier League. A great competition, and many English players are very important to their teams. But take them out of environments with so many key foreign players, and bring them together … Well, they look vaguely naked on the pitch. Exposed, certainly.

I am not contemptuous of this England team.  I am deeply surprised by it. “Those guys are going to beat Spain or Germany?”

Yet, here they are, in the quarterfinals.

I suppose anything is possible. And the old, slow, rickety-looking English could win Euro 2012. Could happen. I don’t expect it to.