Nations over the centuries have found different ways to enhance their prestige.
They have waged wars; they have erected great buildings; they have cultivated institutions of artistic excellence.
We in Britain should take great pride in the fact that today, in the year of the Football Association’s 150th anniversary, one of the most popular ways in which nations strive to achieve this is by excelling in sports many of which were invented by our 19th century ancestors.
The trouble is that, even in today’s varied sporting landscape, not everyone can excel at the same time.
And when habitually losing nations become impatient and the pressure mounts, the temptation can grow to take short cuts.
The short cut used by the German Democratic Republic was doping.
Gulf states achieved a modicum of instant track success by importing middle-distance runners from east Africa.
To me, the notion that it might somehow be appropriate for Manchester United’s new teenage prodigy, Adnan Januzaj, to play football for England is another – modest – example of the type of temptation that a national lust for success can foment.
Even the most cursory inspection of the young man’s details reveals that there are at least three states with a stronger claim on his international services.
Though one of these – Kosovo – is still for the moment unable to play competitive international matches, that still leaves Albania and Belgium, where he was born.
Even in the supremely unlikely event that Januzaj became an England star of the future, it would be, at best, a quick – and temporary – fix for English football’s deep-seated problems.
I am not the first, and will not be the last, to argue that by far our best chance of ending the 47 years (and counting) of hurt since England’s sole major championship success is to prioritise the sort of grass-roots and youth football reform that has helped to transform on-field fortunes for France, Spain, Germany and, for that matter, Belgium.
Once young English players are imbued with the technical proficiency and off-pitch maturity of some of their overseas peers, we should start to find that they become desirable commodities for foreign clubs and do not have to await their opportunity in the Premier League.
Sustainable improvement can only come by developing the sort of conveyor-belt of talent we see most clearly in France, Spain and Germany today.
Pinning our hopes on the latest sensation, however sensational, can only prolong the wait for real progress.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938