England suffer their heaviest defeat at a World Cup finals as they are beaten 4-1 and outclassed by Germany in the second round.
Germany 4-1 England
And so, a nation reverts to the usual agonised soul-searching after its lionised football "warriors" are revealed to be nothing more than paper tigers.
Er...didn't we do this four years ago after England's exit at the last World Cup?? From this very blog, July 2006:
"Overall, lessons has to be learned from this campaign - but that will be down to Steve McClaren, who will take over from Sven-Goran Eriksson with immediate effect. Hopefully McClaren will be given time to find a system that gets the best out of the players, and hopefully he'll be tough enough to drop players who are under performing. Let's be honest, this England team never matched their pre-World Cup hype."
Well, we all know what became of Steve McClaren's reign as England coach.
But the over-hyped under performing England team are still with us. OK - perhaps Lampard's disallowed goal could have made a difference, but it was clear from the start that Germany were the superior team, and they could have scored more than 4 goals, had it not been for the goalkeeping skills of David James.
The FA has to take a cold hard look at England's overall performances in this tournament; it has to look at why our supposedly 'world class players' can't function as a world class team; it has to take a look at the Premiership - which is often hyped as the best football league in the world, but feels more akin to a money-making machine.
Finally - the FA needs to look in the mirror, at their whole set-up. Fabio Capello's career as England supremo is on the line - but he's not the only one responsible for this England team's World Cup fiasco...
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