Reasons To Be Slightly Less Miserable

To all fellow England fans gripped with feelings of despondency and déjà vu after Saturday’s game, a few consolations.

1. We’re one of the eight best teams in the world. You can’t really argue with that now. Not after we’ve been quarter finalists for pretty much every tournament over the past millennium. And it’s not too bad, is it? We don’t have the largest, richest or most fanatical population in the world so we shouldn’t really expect the best team. And don’t try the counter-argument of how we invented modern football. After all, nobody expects Thomas Edison to design the best light bulbs any more.

2. Wayne Rooney got sent off for a proper foul. If you’re going to regress into childhood, go all the way. Stamp on somebody’s goolies. Don’t, as Deco did, just hide the ball behind your back and say “Nyahh, you’re not having it, nyahh!” What sort of a career-defining moment is that to look back on?

3. We’ve found out what Owen Hargreaves actually does. This used to be one of the great mysteries of science. The origin of the universe, the behaviour of an electron and the purpose of Owen Hargreaves. Some of us were getting ready to dismantle the Bayern Munich midfielder, possibly without an anaesthetic, in an attempt to find out. But now we know. He scuttles about the pitch and deputises adequately for superior players when they’re injured. Now the great minds can turn to the next question: If Jermaine Jenas is in a squad and nobody notices, does he really exist?

4. Frank Lampard. He’s had more shots on goal than anybody else in the tournament. And he inspired the most oft-quoted obscure fact of the tournament: that he’s had more shots on goal etc. Compared to these two achievements, his inability to hit a cow’s arse with a shovel is fairly trivial.

5. England have caught up with modern tactics. In 1998 France won the World Cup by not playing any decent strikers. Four years later, half the teams in the tournament were trying to emulate them. Clearly Eriksson saw this as the way to go when he selected two crocks, a juvenile and a freak of nature as his squad’s attack force. Portugal probably only beat us by taking the next step: going a large section of the game without any centre forwards at all.

6. Theo Walcott had a really spiffing holiday. He made some fantastic new friends. He sat on some excellent benches. He got some great photos to show his mum. Best of all, he didn’t have to do any work at all!

7. Steve McClaren is bursting with ideas. Every game was spent scribbling down notes and holding them in front of Eriksson. He only broke off to mutter intently in his boss and soon-to-be predecessor’s ear. We shouldn’t, at this stage, be too worried by the fact that Eriksson apparently paid him no notice at all.

8. There’s no single scapegoat for England’s exit. Which means no weeks of hate campaigns and (very) thinly disguised xenophobia in the tabloids. Attempts are being made to find a villain. Blame has swirled around Rooney (for stamping on someone’s goolies), Carvalho (for allowing his goolies to be stamped on), Ronaldo (for being an annoying tosser) and the Argentinean referee (for being Argentinean, presumably). But the lack of a single target suggests the real reason for our defeat lies elsewhere. We lost because we weren’t good enough. Accept it and move on.