The squad against Algeria failed to impress and prompted "crisis talks" between manager Fabio Capello and the players
After four years of waiting and nearly 50 years since England reigned supreme, is it time to dream that we will once again lift the World Cup? Author and football fan Lynne Truss gives her humorous thoughts on the tournament.
Projectile slime
Today programme World Cup correspondent, author Lynne Truss
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With England out, Lynne Truss's attention has turned to the great skill of the remaining players - at spitting.
"There's no doubt about it, the old 'spot the gob' competition must be brought back to newspapers immediately,"
is her conclusion. But what, she wonders, are the medical implications of such oral evacuations? "Is that saliva, do you think, or is it phlegm?"
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If it's saliva, there's no excuse, as it can easily be swallowed.
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Alongside the much prized Golden Boot, awarded to the top scorer in the competition, another prize should be invented, she believes.
"A golden sputum cup, in acknowledgement of all this super-human competitive gobbing."
I feel lost
With only a few teams left and the semi-finals looming, Lynne Truss is getting a growing feeling of sadness about the long days without matches.
Glum faces on returning England footballers
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"
I feel odd, lost, untethered.
There was no football yesterday. There's none today," she pines. But the sadness is mixed with a dash of shame, as she looks back at the dent in her sofa. "I wonder, when I'm on my death bed, whether I'll express the regret - I wish I'd watched more football?." Still, there is some consolation. She might have done very little in the last few weeks, but the same goes for another select group: "Many of the much anticipated footballing stars, who have now flown home, did astonishing amounts of not much while they were in it".
This is the end
Well, it's all over for England and its anxious supporters, as they were roundly beaten by Germany in the first knock out round.
England 1. Germany 4.
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"When the dust has settled, we may very well realize that it was
one of the funniest things we have ever seen on a football pitch,
" thinks Truss.
"To borrow from the great PG Wodehouse, Germany went through us yesterday like a bullet through a cream puff." "The only comfort we can take from the most convincing defeat of an England team in the modern era is that a, it really was incredibly convincing and b, it happened on an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful day."
The defeat got Truss to thinking about the logic of football talk, which does "more magical thinking every day than Gabriel Garcia Marquez".
She wonders what leads football to think it unthinkable to substitute Wayne Rooney, despite his poor performances. "Snail porridge is unthinkable... Capello not resigning is unthinkable, but making a red faced, underperforming footballer make way for a team mate fresh off the bench - I can think that quite easily."
Do or die
The nation held its breath as it waited for the final whistle for confirmation that England's 1-0 lead over Slovenia was enough to get them through to the last 16.
Fans celebrate after England's last minute qualification into the final 16
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"I spent much of the afternoon shouting at the commentator to stop getting ahead of himself putting England in the last 16 before the game was finished. Why do they do that?" Lynne observes that "there was something different yesterday watching England play Slovenia." "Last Friday against Algeria they were just so truly, horribly bad, they sort of weakened me and I'm wondering whether it was deliberate," she reflects. "You know how torturers go about things, first they apply the electrodes then they offer you a toffee and then you break down and tell them who the mole is. It was abit like that."
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I found myself welling up with mad emotion thinking my boys, my lovely boys, even about John Terry for heaven's sake.
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She describes the rollercoaster of emotion that was shared by all England fans, "first they subjected me to pain, and then made the pain stop and I found myself sort of loving them for it. Almost like an involuntary reflex.
I found myself welling up with mad emotion
thinking my boys, my lovely boys, even about John Terry for heaven's sake."
Points table insomnia
After England's "jaw-droppingly awful performance" against Algeria, the issue of "group stage points table mastery", has taken over the World.
England striker Wayne Rooney disappointed after Algeria draw
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"However many times you hear the different options for England to qualify, you can never seem to remember," she says. At this stage of the competition, she explains, "I need points tables in front of me all the time. Even beside me at night in case I wake up in a panic thinking what if Ghana draws with Germany, is that definitely curtains for Australia?" England played football "
like the people who'd heard the game described but never actually seen it.
"
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England played football like the people who'd heard the game described but never actually seen it.
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"Be careful what you joke about", she warns, "Wayne Rooney may now really end up living in a caravan on some waste ground wearing a dirty vest and growing a big red beard. Oh the curse of those sports star TV ads".
Ronaldo: 'Git' or not?
The first few goal-less games were a disappointment, "it pains me to remember this but when this World Cup started I really did think there would be goals", she says.
Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo gets a yellow card against the Ivory Coast
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"If we want to continue to love this World Cup we must just start to see beauty and excitement in other things." But the goal-less Portugal-Ivory Coast game provided other realms of pleasure for Lynne, "wasn't it blissful to see Cristiano Ronaldo get booked for
no other reason than he's a total git
," she gloats. And the cracks in the French side were beginning to show early, seeming to play "with their backs against each other and with their iPods on, just to spite the coach."
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When this World Cup started I really did think there would be goals.
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She adds that, indeed, "there's nothing wrong watching a pair of good national teams efficiently cancelling eachother out against a background of incredibly annoying background noise". In fact, "it's a mere way of making 90 minutes go by as if it were two and a half hours".
Some aren't remotely interested
At first glance, England's Group C competitors looked easy to beat, but a week before the first game "Mr Doubt comes to stay", Lynne Truss muses. "You start reading up about the USA team and it suddenly occurs to you that they are no pushover." She expresses her shock that some people are not remotely interested in football's biggest competition: "To these people the medical status of the rotating hinge joint between humorous and ulna on the person of an overpaid, professional, illiterate athlete, is not news." She shares her frustration after placing a bet on the Ivory Coast to get through to the semi-finals, only to find that their star striker Didier Drogba is injured. "It is a common error to believe that watching the World Cup is all about joy, in fact
at a personal level it's all about anxiety management
."
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