The Vuvuzela Won

Many pages have been written and many theories aired about the failure of the England football team in the World Cup.

I can't let it go by without adding my two pennorth. Heaven knows, I had to endure enough of it.

Here I am in my England t-shirt looking forward to the England v Algeria match. First of all, tell all the knee-jerkers to stop calling for Fabio's resignation. He's the best man for the job, always was, and still is. The words "silk purse and sow's ear" come to mind when thinking of his task with the team. I won't go on about pampered players earning too much money. That's a fact, we have to live with it. But the team is very weak. Too many key players were injured. And they were too old and slow. But where are the youngsters? Herein lies the rub.

Germany had an old team last time round but they've rebuilt themselves and at this stage look like eventual winners. They have 35,000 coaches to train young players. We have fewer than 3,000. I gather the FA spends £1m a week on grass roots football but clearly it's not enough. I'd like to see the big retailers get behind the game with some serious investment.

Then there is the FA themselves. And FIFA. Two useless organisations run entirely by men. FIFA: ignoring complaints about the ball. Rejecting the need for technology until they had to do an embarrassing u turn. The FA is run entirely by businessmen, some of whom have featured less than favourably in the News of the World. I am with the late, great Brian Clough and Lord Sugar in their withering assessments of the Football Association. I'm not saying you can solve the problem by adding a few women to the board, but it would make a difference. For example, the panicked reaction before the World Cup to news that AC Milan were trying to lure Fabio away. Instead of letting it lie and riding the tournament out, what did they do? They immediately locked him (and them) into a two year deal. Now if I had been on the board I would have urged them to apply common sense. It's not something men necessarily have when they're in a collective.

I would like to think that Fabio can now rebuild the team along the lines of what happened in Germany but according to the Sunday Times, the next generation of players is even worse.

But no doubt by 2014 we will have put it all behind us and will go through the usual anguish and agony when we watch England play.

Come On My Son...

As Mrs Doyle memorably said in Father Ted, the one where she and some other redoubtable ladies were watching the clerics' football championships.

I was determined this time to try to get with it. To try to watch the football. At the time of the last World Cup, we were in Ischia, an Italian island. J dragged me along to see a match in a bar and I zoned out, so that when he turned excitedly to me and said "did you see that?" I had to admit I hadn't, and he got quite annoyed.

So this time I have been eagerly reading the breathless prose, wondering about the 4:2:2 and if Fabio will use it, and wondering also how Sven-Goran managed to get another international gig (this time with Ivory Coast.) None of us, least of all the players, could probably take SG seriously after the Ulrika Jonsson accounts of his stacked heel shoes left neatly outside the bedroom.

Anyway, back to the football.

I promised J last night I would sit in the same room when the England match was on, but I would be reading because I find watching England too stressful.

Sadly dear reader, I was right.

The early Gerrard goal, well, even I put my book down. Was this a sign of a newly reinvigorated Fabio super side? One that would get the goals in, fast and confidently?

But then it all limped into the usual tragedy, where you hope desperately someone will get their act together and score, and all you get is a goalkeeper's schoolboy error and that dejected look we remember so well from years gone by.

I feel so sad for all the fans who got so excited.

J keeps stoutly telling me that they could still finish second in their group and go through to the next round, but I'm thinking that Brazil, Spain and Germany are hardly quaking in their boots now that we can't beat the USA.

Next week we will be watching the Algerian match in a Greek bar and I will try to pay attention. Maybe Fabio will try the 5:2:1 with Rooney on his own up front (he sometimes seems like the only one that can be arsed.) But I'm having one of my premonitions that Slovenia are going to do quite well, and this doesn't bode well for England......