Where do we go from here?
That's the question on the lips of anyone with some interest in English football.
After an almost faultless qualifying campaign under Fabio Capello, England were rewarded with an 'easy' group. We couldn't believe our luck when Algeria, Slovenia and the USA came out of the hat in December last year
But, as the English colloquialism goes, we made a right pig's ear out of it.
Expectations were great, yet performances were so poor. A goalkeeping howler, schoolboy defending, no imagination going forward, in the end it was no wonder we finished runners-up to our friends across the pond.
Then there was Germany in the last 16. Pundits and journalists cooked up the usual storm: "we can do it". The 2010 crop certainly weren't Germany's strongest, but they had enough to kick England off the park.
It was so easy for the German's it seemed like one of their warm-up games.
And with that the 'golden generation' became the 'lacklustre lions'. Given their obscene salaries and performances put together, criticism couldn't really be hard enough.
Moving up in the FIFA rankings was as farcicle as the decision to allow vuvuzelas into the South African venues. It's simple: as a footballing nation, we are not as good as we thought.
Realistic ambitions of England fans were distorted by the perception of the Premier League. Great domestic league equals great international squad? Wrong.
The mediocrity of the England internationals is concealed by the foreign imports beside them that provide the flair for the Liverpools and Arsenals of this world.
It's scary to guess what the Premier League would look like with no foreign players. I'm sure Frank Lampard would rather cross the ball for Didier Drogba than Emile Heskey.
I reckon Steven Gerrard would rather feed Fernando 'El Niño' Torres than Jermain Defoe. The strikers featured on the bench for their respective countries. Seeing Spain winning the tournament in such style underlines the gulf in class England need to reduce.
There is no way Torres would have sat on the bench if he was English. Meanwhile, I doubt Vicente Del Bosque would have given Defoe much thought at all if he was Spanish.
Another 40 years of hurt? Most probably.
That's the question on the lips of anyone with some interest in English football.
After an almost faultless qualifying campaign under Fabio Capello, England were rewarded with an 'easy' group. We couldn't believe our luck when Algeria, Slovenia and the USA came out of the hat in December last year
But, as the English colloquialism goes, we made a right pig's ear out of it.
Expectations were great, yet performances were so poor. A goalkeeping howler, schoolboy defending, no imagination going forward, in the end it was no wonder we finished runners-up to our friends across the pond.
Then there was Germany in the last 16. Pundits and journalists cooked up the usual storm: "we can do it". The 2010 crop certainly weren't Germany's strongest, but they had enough to kick England off the park.
It was so easy for the German's it seemed like one of their warm-up games.
And with that the 'golden generation' became the 'lacklustre lions'. Given their obscene salaries and performances put together, criticism couldn't really be hard enough.
Moving up in the FIFA rankings was as farcicle as the decision to allow vuvuzelas into the South African venues. It's simple: as a footballing nation, we are not as good as we thought.
Realistic ambitions of England fans were distorted by the perception of the Premier League. Great domestic league equals great international squad? Wrong.
The mediocrity of the England internationals is concealed by the foreign imports beside them that provide the flair for the Liverpools and Arsenals of this world.
It's scary to guess what the Premier League would look like with no foreign players. I'm sure Frank Lampard would rather cross the ball for Didier Drogba than Emile Heskey.
I reckon Steven Gerrard would rather feed Fernando 'El Niño' Torres than Jermain Defoe. The strikers featured on the bench for their respective countries. Seeing Spain winning the tournament in such style underlines the gulf in class England need to reduce.
There is no way Torres would have sat on the bench if he was English. Meanwhile, I doubt Vicente Del Bosque would have given Defoe much thought at all if he was Spanish.
Another 40 years of hurt? Most probably.
