Day 8; Summary mixed with live commentary of Italy vs Costa Rica

For the optimists among us, of which I'm embarrassed to say, I am one, it really really hurts. And what's perhaps even more painful is, it's not over yet. We're not technically eliminated as I begin to write this piece, watching the Italy vs Costa Rica game on which our fate depends, meaning there'll probably be more sadness to come, especially for those of us, again like myself, who still unfortunately believe.

Answers to why we have failed to deliver, yet again, cover a wide range of areas, varying from embodied ignorance in pubs saying 'coz we're shit', to the big-picture lookers, who point their fingers towards improving the English game at grass-roots level. But it's what happens on top of the grass that matters, as improving funding and level of coaching in the sport isn't going to make Johnson-Cahill-Jagielka-Baines a strong, well organised, capable back four. Whilst it may improve our back four, or even our whole squad in the future, hopefully in time for the 2052 World Cup, which will be played on Mars as the world's top players attempt to deal with the humidity and also lack of gravity, more short term fixes are surely available.

As the game continues to evolve, tactics are becoming more and more crucial. Now I'm not saying that Roy Hodgson completely ignores the use of tactics, accusing them of witchcraft, but the phrase 'to play our own game' and to simply have an attacking mentality regardless of opposition, doesn't constitute as good tactics, regardless of how much we all want to see it. Roy deserves praise for playing an attacking-ish formation, and filling it with such attacking players, however preparation for each individual opposition should be prioritised over this fascination that we have with attacking football. For templates look at Italy, who are still disappointingly drawing nil-nil with Costa Rica by the way as I type, a nation that who traditionally favour a defensive mentality, yet have a remarkable record at tournaments, and a whole lot less of depression in their footballing press BUT OH MY WORD ARE THEY LUCKY NOT TO JUST GIVE AWAY A PENALTY, thank god for poor officiating. Taking a defensive style, just like taking an attacking one, oh for fucks sake Costa Rica have scored, isn't enough to make a successful tournament team on its own however, but a less naive approach must be taken, with sharper, more detailed tactics. Having said that, we'll never know what is planned inside the dressing room and on their scenic training pitch, so maybe such schemes are already in place.

A huge positive to come from the game was Rooney being able to throw an 8 year old, heavy metaphorical monkey off of his back, having scored his first World Cup goal since making his debut in 2006. But this was swept under the metaphorical mat, as Suarez, 75% fit, not played a match in 5 weeks, was still sharp enough to punish us on two occasions. A sign of a man who is quite simply, very, very, very good at football.

Like against Italy, the rhythm of the play was again fairly even, with neither team having enough shots or possession to believe that they are truly in control of the proceedings. Yet warnings were there that Suarez was in the mood, shooting from a corner whilst Joe Hart was out parading in his six-yard box was his earliest highlight, nearly catching out the England goalkeeper who at this stage of the tournament has saved just one of the six shots on target he has faced. That solitary save was from a fairly straightforward long range attempt from an Italian, which he fumbled, and the other non-net finding shot on target, was that swaggy chip from Balotelli, which Jagielka cleared off the line. With a man responsible for such statistics, behind our back four which everyone doubts anyway, it was a surely a case of when the world class striking power of Cavani and Suarez punished us. They did so on 39 minutes, with Cavani providing a floated pass over the head of Jagielka, who looked as if he'd exchanged feet with Fred of Brazil, was caught as flat footed and unaware of his opponents main threat as Cahill with Balotelli in our opening game. The pass found Suarez, who found the onion bag with his head.

Suarez celebrating breaking our hearts

As mentioned earlier, hysteria was present as Rooney equalised, hopefully just a taster of elation that we will one day be able to enjoy a whole meal of. This made Suarez's winner even harder to swallow however, as a draw I would've taken in the circumstances. Then, not knowing how poor Italy would play against Costa Rica, and still are playing poor, a point would've just meant we need to better Uruguay's result against Italy, when we play Costa Rica ourselves, but we weren't able to hold on, again Suarez was allowed to elude the attention of England's dopey looking centre halves and fire the ball past Joe Hart, producing such a horrible shot to save ratio for the Man City and Doritos goalkeeper. 

Less depressing games were also available. The impressive, and Greg Stanley's Surprise Package-titled holding, Colombia, defeated Ivory Coast with Quintero and James Rodriguez looking like players everyone will be monitoring for the post-World Cup transfer rush. The goal of that game was provided by Gervinho though, who with his side losing 2-0, must've just thought 'Eff it, might as well go it alone' and dribbled through about 14 Colombians before providing a great finish.

The 11pm-er, which again most people missed I'm sure after the football disgust you feel after England lose, it's 92 minutes by the way and still Costa Rica lead I feel sick, England eliminations are supposed to occur in the knockout stages, physically on the pitch with a feeling of injust, I can't be arsed to finish this post now. The whistle's gone and we're out. Japan played Greece and it was nil-nil anyway.