England are going to fuck up tonight.

[JOZeldenrust]

Congrats Limeys! And congrats Yanks! Both are through to the 8th finals. We'll find out who they'll be playing against later tonight.

[devogue]

...and with awesome predictability (even more predictable than last night's result) the English Press goes ballistic, ripping the players and the manager to shreds, slagging off "multi-millionaire losers", claiming that it's obvious Capello should never have got the job, attacking the FA for handing him a contract extension...and on, and on... the nation goes mad, whipped in to a frenzy by the scum hacks, falling for the same bullshit they fall for at every single English World Cup Finals campaign since 1982.

It's just sooooooo difficult to remember the following examples:

1986: England start with a dire 1-0 loss to a poor Portuguese side, followed up by an atrocious display in a dreadful 0-0 draw with Morocco. The press in England go nuts. Only a stunning 3-0 display against a fine Polish team inspired by Boniek saw them sneak through to the knock out stages. A fine win over Paraguay then set up one of the most famous World Cup matches of all time against Argentina. What people forget (and it's no wonder considering the nature of Maradona's goals) is that England played Argentina off the pitch that day, and they came within a whisker of an equaliser through Lineker, who caught fire only in the third group game. Only the genius of Maradona sank them that day - they would have been strongly fancied to win the whole thing if they had gone through.

1990: A piss poor performance against Ireland and a yawnfest of a draw against Holland was followed by a scraped win over a shit Egypt team. Remember the press howling for Bobby Robson's head? The anguish, the despair... then an extraordinarily tight match against Belgium was followed by a less than convincing display against Cameroon...oh look...England in the World Cup semi, and all of the operatic tragedy that followed as Gazza cried and England were the width of a post and then a couple of penalites away from another date against a seriously shit Argentina team in the final...

Or what about the "shocking" loss to Romania in the group stages of 1998, or what about the woeful draws against Sweden and Nigeria in 2002...

The truth is, England are shite in the group stages of World Cups - the players are terrified of the weight of expectation and they just stumble through - one day they'll get caught and will be dumped out, but not this time. I expect them to win, and win comfortably, on Wednesday. The press need to have their stupid fucking criticism stuffed right up their arse. Let Argentina rip minnows to shreds and ponce about in the group stage - their openess and fluency will be their eventual undoing, just as it was in 2006. Do you honestly think that the likes of Diego Maradona would be able to out-think Capello down the line?

Also, Rooney has been totally fucking shit in the last two games - would you rather he was shit in the group stage, or in the business stage of the competition? He will not play shite three times in a row - I expect him to claim at least two goals in England's final group match, and then kick on from there.

All they have to do then is avoid fucking penalties. Either go down 2-0 or win 2-0 in the 2nd round and quarters - they need to stop faffing about and, just for once, take a World Cup by the throat. Jesus Christ - any team coming up against players like Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Cole and Terry should be apprehensive - Champion's League winners and finalists, players who have proved their strength and class at the very highest levels of club football.

They need to sort it to fuck out.

Apart from Rooney scoring (although he played well enough to be confident going in tot eh second round) I got it pretty much right.

Go me.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

You have to feel sorry for Slovenia. At full time, they had lost the game but were through to the next round and then...

USA score in injury time and dump them out.

Their keeper deserved better on his own - the rest of the side were average but he was very special indeed.


And why the fuck didn't England play at that pace against Algeria? This group could have been done and dusted!

[Animavore]

...and with awesome predictability (even more predictable than last night's result) the English Press goes ballistic, ripping the players and the manager to shreds, slagging off "multi-millionaire losers", claiming that it's obvious Capello should never have got the job, attacking the FA for handing him a contract extension...and on, and on... the nation goes mad, whipped in to a frenzy by the scum hacks, falling for the same bullshit they fall for at every single English World Cup Finals campaign since 1982.

It's just sooooooo difficult to remember the following examples:

1986: England start with a dire 1-0 loss to a poor Portuguese side, followed up by an atrocious display in a dreadful 0-0 draw with Morocco. The press in England go nuts. Only a stunning 3-0 display against a fine Polish team inspired by Boniek saw them sneak through to the knock out stages. A fine win over Paraguay then set up one of the most famous World Cup matches of all time against Argentina. What people forget (and it's no wonder considering the nature of Maradona's goals) is that England played Argentina off the pitch that day, and they came within a whisker of an equaliser through Lineker, who caught fire only in the third group game. Only the genius of Maradona sank them that day - they would have been strongly fancied to win the whole thing if they had gone through.

1990: A piss poor performance against Ireland and a yawnfest of a draw against Holland was followed by a scraped win over a shit Egypt team. Remember the press howling for Bobby Robson's head? The anguish, the despair... then an extraordinarily tight match against Belgium was followed by a less than convincing display against Cameroon...oh look...England in the World Cup semi, and all of the operatic tragedy that followed as Gazza cried and England were the width of a post and then a couple of penalites away from another date against a seriously shit Argentina team in the final...

Or what about the "shocking" loss to Romania in the group stages of 1998, or what about the woeful draws against Sweden and Nigeria in 2002...

The truth is, England are shite in the group stages of World Cups - the players are terrified of the weight of expectation and they just stumble through - one day they'll get caught and will be dumped out, but not this time. I expect them to win, and win comfortably, on Wednesday. The press need to have their stupid fucking criticism stuffed right up their arse. Let Argentina rip minnows to shreds and ponce about in the group stage - their openess and fluency will be their eventual undoing, just as it was in 2006. Do you honestly think that the likes of Diego Maradona would be able to out-think Capello down the line?

Also, Rooney has been totally fucking shit in the last two games - would you rather he was shit in the group stage, or in the business stage of the competition? He will not play shite three times in a row - I expect him to claim at least two goals in England's final group match, and then kick on from there.

All they have to do then is avoid fucking penalties. Either go down 2-0 or win 2-0 in the 2nd round and quarters - they need to stop faffing about and, just for once, take a World Cup by the throat. Jesus Christ - any team coming up against players like Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Cole and Terry should be apprehensive - Champion's League winners and finalists, players who have proved their strength and class at the very highest levels of club football.

They need to sort it to fuck out.

Apart from Rooney scoring (although he played well enough to be confident going in tot eh second round) I got it pretty much right.

Go me.

Cognitive dissonance?