I'm not going to South Africa. So instead I'm gonna try and watch a bit if not all of every game at work, or at home or in a bar or wherever. On the telly. With a beer. And I'm gonna predict who I think is gonna win. And talk about football stuff. So there.

Saturday, 19 June 2010

SHORT ESSAY: England, Bye England. World Cup Obituary.

And so that is what we waited four years for. A hat-trick of insipid performances from a team that refused to gel. Lampard went missing in inaction. Rooney dropped back to midfield time after time, picked up the ball but had no one to pass to. Gerrard wandered aimlessly up and down the left. SWP tried to take people on and got tackled every time. Heskey jumped, chested down and lost the ball. Carragher raged red and got burned. Ashley Cole shook his head in disbelief. Joe Cole was left on the bench.

The only mark England left on the tournament - a howler by Green for a future World Cup Blunders compilation on some minor satellite channel. A lost World Cup. The last for Gerrard, Lampard, James and who knows how many more. The last traces of England's so-called 'golden generation' buried under a mound of banality in the land of gold and diamond mines.

The world will not remember England's contribution to the 2010 World Cup. For there was nothing to remember, bar the red, despairing faces of the inadequate players and the draped flags and vociferous support of the loyal fans.


England has one more chance to make the above not become so...