As England’s World Cup dreams turn to soiled bed sheets for the second time in six short months, Joseph Reaney asks if it’s time for the country to get back to losing ways.

After a week of endless debates, accusations and excuses, the country has finally settled on the key reasons why England’s vomit-inducing World Cup pity plea ended its long life nestling in the u-bend of an Alpen-clogged Swiss shitter. In the end, we decided, it all came down to three things: the British media’s nasty habit of reporting the facts, the FA’s naivety/arrogance/collective ugliness and Sepp Blatter’s thoroughly unpatriotic lack of neutrality (although personally I’d also like to see some of the blame fall at the feet of Guy Garvey – after all, there are only so many times you can listen to One Day Like This without feeling the irrepressible need to defect to Russia.) But whatever the reasons for the nation’s failure, the simple fact is that England weren’t good enough. What baffles me is why this constitutes news; surely not being good enough is what we’re good at. Continue reading →