Smiling Through the Pain

I am shocked! I've seen pictures of England footballers (if that's not now officially a contradiction in terms) - England footballers LAUGHING just HOURS after the game.


Not miserable enough Cashley

Just what the hell have they got to laugh at? I don't expect to see one of 'em crack so much as a smile for the next four years. I'm surprised they've got the gall to fly home on an aeroplane. They should WALK. (I'm sure Rooney and co can manage the tricky bit around the Med - it wasn't that long ago that they could walk on water).

And some of them have got back only to go away on holiday. Holidays? No, no, no. Fuck the Maldives. We have some Three Lions sackcloth and Maldon Sea Salt for them to rub into their gaping wounds of shame.

Seriously though Ledley and Ashley are as entitled to a laugh as anyone. You do kind of wonder what they might have been saying to each other - something to the effect of:
'So at which exclusive late-night dive will you be hurling abuse at the staff and/or police, Cashley?'
'Where do you go to do it, Ledley, old chum?'

It's pretty clear what these blokes have got to laugh at, any road. They remain unthinkably well-paid for being unthinkably average and unthinkably blinking unthinking about the way they play the game.

They'll still be able to cash in. I can see the ads now. Rob Green consults his Nat West bank manager cos money just seems to slip through his fingers. Jamie Carragher embodies a particularly slow broadband connection. Parcelforce show Messrs Lennon and Wright-Phillips whacking cross after cross over Crouchy's haed while the strapline says 'For really good delivery use Parcelforce.'

You might include Capello in this loop of the overpaid and underdone although I don't think a lack of forethought is his problem. Just take a look at how clairvoyantly the squad suits matched perfectly the vibrancy of England's attacking play.

The FA have already embarked on their obligatory post-tournament challenge to distinguish a large posterior from the pointy bit in the middle of the arm. And even they manage that the chances of the elbow knowing what the arse is doing are nil.

There are of course various replacements being lined up, mostly by the papers, but frankly, unless someone potters in and tells the preening constricted ninnies who couldn't put together a 4-year-old's jigsaw puzzle let alone a thrilling passing movement to go back to their clubs and prepare for retirement, then we'll just have a different farmer to blame for being in charge of the muck-spreader.

Harry Redknapp leads the England squad out to train

Of course the fact that the thrusting young Germans turned us over has made everyone wonder why the creaking thirty-somethings were there in the first place. And there's a tale. Someone pointed me in the direction of Matt Dickinson in The Times.

He says the Germans were in bits after Croatia tonked them 3-0 in 1998. Self-loathing reached fever pitch when Keegan's England beat them 1-0 in 2000. (And that England team made this one look like Barce-frigging-lona).

They have to host the World Cup in 6 years! What are they going to do?

Option 1: Bring in a bloke who's seen the world and pay him shedloads to really nail down this 4-4-2 system so we can't do owt else, ever. And make sure he picks the same half-baked fatigued lamebrains to underline their mastery of the anticlimax.

Option 2: Force your nation's top division to have a fully functioning academy at every club or you'll take away their right to play in the Bundesliga. Oversee an increasing representation of young ethically diverse and talented young lads who actually get to start the odd game at their clubs and get a national coach in who like sthe idea of young fellas playing for Germany, even if it means the odd freakish 5-1 drubbing being given a team that's a bit tender and naive. (As opposed to England 2010 who represent the only recorded instance of being long-in-the-tooth and naive).

Naturally they took the long-term option. Not the quick-fix that turns out to be a BP style sticking plaster of a plan. We should do that, then.

So I hereby give my permission for:
1. Sepp Blatter to ride roughshod over European employment law and force English clubs to play at least 5 Englishmen.
2. The FA to put a wage cap on clubs in this country so that chuckling chavs look a little less self-satisfied when they open their wage packets of a Friday morning.
3. A ban on doom-mongers everywhere cos the average age of the new England team is 23 and they get a fearful hammering from Belgium.
4. Let's buy some playing fields back.

In the meantime you've got to start putting together your team of the tournament. Is bloody well mandatory.

Here's mine:
Eduardo (Portugal): Maicon (Brazil), Juan (Brazil), Lucio (Brazil), Heinze (Argentina); Felipe Melo (Brazil), Xavi (Spain), Ozil (Germany), Sanchez (Chile), Honda (Japan), Villa (Spain).

Honorable mentions to Klose and Higuain who are charmless but effective, Xabi Alonso, Endo, Donovan, and of course the lad Messi, who hasn't made it on the grounds that he hasn't surprised me at all.

Traditionally, you should have an Utter Stefan Kuntz XI but I'm afraid they know who they are and any road they're all on holiday at the moment.