Hubris

Oh dearie, dearie me... Despite the pre-tournament confidence, and frequent mentions of 1966, England aren't doing terrifically well in the World Cup.

Before the first game against the USA the whole of England was supremely confident. The papers were full of quotes from Hollywood stars saying things like "I'm looking forward to the USA playing Manchester United", leading to a contempt of the US team (as the whole US nation - including their team - obviously knows nothing about soccer) and a confidence that England would give them a thorough thrashing on the field.

Now, admittedly, soccer is not a particularly mainstream sport in the US, and perhaps the general man in the street doesn't know a huge amount about it having not played since school, but US athletes take their sports really seriously! It doesn't matter if that sport is baseball, football, hockey or soccer they will want to be the very best at it. I think it surprised people that they turned up with the correct number of players and understood the offside rule...

They held England to a deserved draw. They were cruelly robbed of a victory against Slovenia (Stephen made me watch the highlights and we can't see any reason why the goal was chopped off) and are now second in the group.

In contrast, England are third after a disappointing draw against Albania. There could be an upset on the cards! We'll need to do some advanced maths to see what results are needed and who might go through. Roll on Wednesday!!

I have to say that I'm not one of the Scots who supports anyone that plays against England. We've lived down here far too long for that! But perhaps being Scottish (and having quite frankly a rather rubbish national team) you learn to have a little humility and a sense of perspective about the glorious game!

Okay. So England won it once....but that was 44 years ago. Lets take one tournament at a time! Winning the World Cup in 1966 does not automatically give you a free pass to the final. These guys are all tired after a long season and carrying niggling injuries. They are also carrying that heavy burden of expectation - all of England's hopes and dreams of footballing glory are resting on their shoulders....