FABio CRAPello

In 2014 England football fans will talk about having 48 years of hurt, this is because in the 2010 World Cup the result for England was the same as every other World Cup bar 1966 – England didn’t win. On this occasion England bowed out in a woeful style, although to say they had any form of style would be an elongation of the truth. After a strong qualifying campaign the manger, Fabio Capello, was lauded in the press, yet come the finals he made a monument mistake – he kept with the same tried, tested and successful system… he thus became a bad manager.

Quite why England were so inept is a bit of a mystery, the were not able to pass the ball competently – it was so poor that I wondered whether England were fielding an invisible 12th player who they kept passing to and he was simply unable to control the ball. On top of that, come the World Cup, the team’s structure appeared to have all the rigidity of the Tay Bridge in Scotland – that last sentence was quite rare as it is one of the very few to contain the words “World Cup” and “Scotland”. The whole debate about whether England should have played 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 3-5-2 or 4-2-3-1 did make the words “polish” and “turd” spring to mind.

England started off badly at the World Cup – their pre-tournament meal was a disaster: Robert Green dropped his drink and it went all over the floor, Emile Heskey then slipped on the wet tiles. Despite there not being a foul, England were awarded a penalty, which Frank Lampard took and put over the bar, knocking the squad’s pre-purchased bottles of: whiskey, vodka, gin, port, scotch and martini off the shelf and down the cellar hatch… thus, quite literally, the team’s spirits were at an all time low, having just fallen through the floor.

On the pitch things weren’t much better, England were woeful against the USA, subsequently they were pathetically abysmal against Algeria, moderate against Slovenia and they were finally embarrassed by Germany - where the defence on display was as poor as the ones given by MPs during the expenses scandal and John Terry’s wife appeared to have a greater understanding of where Terry was than Matthew Upson did.

In terms of firepower, England appeared to be as well equipped as a soldier going to fight the Taliban armed only with a water pistol – regrettably, such a solider would probably be one of the better equipped troops that Britain currently has fighting in Afghanistan. Wayne Rooney was the man whom the England fans had pinned their hopes on prior to the World Cup; his form going into the tournament was superb - in terms of footballing ability, he is regarded as one of the best genetically modified potatoes in the world.

Analysing the campaign, one survey of the England fans showed that 68% of the supporters thought Rooney had a poor World Cup – the other 32% presumably failed to realise he even attended the tournament.

Nonetheless, the reports coming from the England base camp suggested that Rooney was banging in goals right, left and centre during training – however, in training he did have the considerable advantage of playing against England’s defence.

The England camp appeared to harbour a great disharmony and many things went wrong leading up to, and during, the World Cup: John Terry forgot who he was married to, Beckham and Rio both suffered injuries, John Terry appeared to suggest the players were revolting (they weren’t in terms of disobeying their leader, although they probably are morally) and during the game with Algeria, there was an unwanted intruder in the dressing room who had no footballing ability whatsoever – but that’s enough about Shaun Wright-Phillips.

After a turbulent campaign where the manager was ragged from pillar to post. The final nail in the coffin came via a 4-1 mauling to Germany, a team who are destined to be labelled as “efficient” just like their car industry – similarly, the British car industry had been in decline since the 1970s, despite having a lot of cash thrown at it.

England were unlucky when Frank Lampard’s shot appeared to break the laws of physics – the fact that the ball hit the crossbar, bounced and then hit the crossbar is clear indicator that the ball crossed the line. Although to be honest I didn’t see the incident in great detail… I was busy trying to linesman the match.

Subsequently the players came home early, given that the French team were forced to return home via economy class due to their poor showing, the England team should have been sent a consignment of roller skates for their return trip. But nonetheless 23 young fit men arrived back at Heathrow last week, tired from their season of football… well 22 young fit men… true to form, Robert Green was unable to even catch the flight…