Why England Didn’t Win The World Cup

England crumble, a nation despairs.

England are out of the 2010 World Cup, we face four more years of hurt (and, let’s face it, probably many more after that) before football comes home. What went wrong for the side that qualified so promisingly under Fabio Capello? For England’s supposed golden generation?

England progress, but how much further can they go?

The moment that earnt England fans at least one more nervous ninety minutes in South Africa.

England’s improvement against Slovenia, when compared with their performances against the USA and Algeria, was vast; but there is no escaping the fact that it has merely papered over the cracks. That England’s reaching the last sixteen is being hailed as something of a success is as dire an indictment on their performances so far as is necessary – we finished second in a group that The Sun newspaper arrogantly – but correctly – labelled easy: “England Algeria Slovenia Yanks“.

Finishing second may not seem all that bad when we were staring a group stage elimination in the face, but the simple fact is that we will now almost certainly have to beat Germany and Argentina to make the semi-finals – two of our old enemies – whereas if we had won our group as we should have done, it would have been Ghana and then Uruguay. Looking at our performances so far, even the improvement against Slovenia, do we have any reason to be optimistic?

Review: Brazil Away Shirt 10/11 (Nike)

Brazil's away shirt for the 2010 World Cup. Click image to view full size.

The World Cup is a festival of football, but it’s also a festival of colour, and each nation’s shirts are an individual way of representing their country. In recognition of this, They Think It’s All Over… has teamed up with the brilliant SoccerPro.com to bring you a review of one of the many kits on show in South Africa this summer – Brazil’s traditional blue away shirt. To find out the history behind the kit and whether it’s worth spending your money on, head over to the Reviews section.

Guest Blog: Five World Cup Stars Heading to the Premier League

Ignoring, for the moment, the shambles that I witnessed a few hours ago – I may write something about it, I may not, to be honest, it would more than likely just be a string of incoherent accusations and criticisms – I have a guest article for you. I was asked to write something about the English Premier League for The Flat Back Four, and with precisely nothing going on in the EPL at the moment, I clutched at a few straws and tried to connect the Premier League with the World Cup as best I could.

So click through to read my article detailing five World Cup players – some are obvious, some are not – who I reckon will grace the Premier League in the not too distant future…

Group F: New Zealand 1-1 Slovakia

A new Kiwi hero is born...

A late, late goal from Winston Reid gave New Zealand their first ever World Cup point last night in Rustenberg despite an incredibly uninspiring performance from the tournament minnows. I haven’t got the time to write a full match reaction – exams, exams, exfrickenams – but seeing as I live in New Zealand it feels as though I should make an effort and write something, so here’s a quick fire five conclusions from the game.

1. Shake it up Ricki!
New Zealand’s only real attacking option throughout the entire game – hell, throughout the entire build up to the World Cup – was a big ol’ diagonal ball into Fallon or Killen. I absolutely respect playing to your strengths, and the All Whites are doing it literally there, but it becomes a tad predictable (nevermind tiresome on the eyes) when you persist at it for ninety minutes. Now I know Winston Reid’s goal resulted from a similar initiative, but every now and then change it up a bit – Smeltz showed that he works best with the ball into feet, a bit of variation never hurt anyone.

Group C: England 1-1 USA

The very thing every England fan feared would happen, happening.

The US of A were clearly delighted to take a point from England in this opening encounter, and you could see why: when England played as they can they cut through the USA with ease and should have scored more goals. However, the combined efforts of a stubborn and disciplined US side and the lacklustre form of England themselves combined to make this a match full of frustration for England fans.

That said, it’s important to remember – and no, this isn’t where I say that it’s game one and there’s plenty of time to go, that’s bollocks, we should be beating the USA – no, it’s important to remember that if Fabio Capello had chosen the best English goalkeeper to start the match, we would almost certainly have three points and be clear top of Group C right now.

Group A: South Africa 1-1 Mexico

Match Reaction

South Africa celebrate the opening goal of the World Cup.

So the World Cup is under way, and it was a pretty engaging opening match in Jo’burg between hosts South Africa and Mexico. I’ll be trying to bring you a bit of reaction from each game I manage to watch throughout the tournament, but bear in mind it is 3.49am as I write this… normal standards may not apply!

Showing our colours…

We here at They Think It’s All Over… are not afraid of showing our colours, and as such, the place has been temporarily decked out in England colours for the duration of the World Cup (or until when/if we’re knocked out and it depresses me to look at it). It is not quite so, uh… tasteful as our usual look I’ll admit, and the colours clash a little with the rest of the site, but fuck it – all that matters is that we’re backing Fabio and the boys in South Africa.

That said, this is not a place for English fans and English fans alone. Fans of all nations are welcome here and I hope the decor doesn’t put you off! We’ll be doing our best to cover the fortunes of as many World Cup nations as possible as the tournament runs its course, though inevtiably bias will creep in. If you want your team to feature more heavily though, weigh in with some comments, inspire us, and we’ll see what we can do!

Mainly though, how fuckin’ excited are you?! The festival of football is almost upon us… enjoy it people, we only get this once every four years… Make. The. Most. Of. It.

The Curse of the Captain: A Blessing in Disguise?

Past and present England captains: could Rio's absence aid England?

Fabio Capello lamented the “curse of the captain” when he saw Rio Ferdinand limp out of training and out of the World Cup earlier this week, and on the surface he may be right to do so. An already disrupted build up to the World Cup in the England camp has now been thrown further off-balance and the reserved Italian has shown his first signs of frustration. But could this in fact be a blessing in disguise for England?

World Cup 2010 Spreadsheet

Hello there! I have been squirrelling away for a while now trying to find a decent wall chart or something with which to plan my World Cup experience and to ascertain just how little sleep I will be getting during June and early July. Unfortunately, because I live in New Zealand and all the decent ones I’ve found have the match dates and kick-off times in either local or UTC+1 time, I’ve had to do it myself!

The good news though, is that I’m a kind and sharing person, and so will post it here so that you can all download it and use it too. All you have to do is pop the scores in as each game is played and the group stage tables and subsequent knockout fixtures will automatically update themselves, which means it also works as a handy predictor (England defeated Spain 8-0 in a classic final during my latest run through).

If you aren’t in New Zealand, it will be easy enough (if slightly time-consuming) to convert the dates/times to your own.

Click here to download the They Think It’s All Over… World Cup 2010 Spreadsheet…

Update: some readers have had problems with the spreadseet calculating goal difference incorrectly. I’m not sure why this is – it might be because it was built in Excel 07 but I saved it in the compatibility format to make it more accessible, it might be a result of altering the dates, or it might be because I stuffed up the formulas when editing it – either way, I’ve prepared a stripped back version in the .xlsx (Excel ’07) format that you can try if you have trouble. The dates are in local times though – do let me know if there are any problems with it.

Click here to download the hopefully fixed TTIAO Spread sheet…