They think it's all over...

We're going home, we're going home...

... we're going...

England's going home!

And I really can't say I'm sorry. The drubbing by Germany on Sunday night was, I gather, our heaviest defeat ever in the World Cup finals. And overall, this was the worst performance I've ever seen from us in a major tournament (and I've seen some dreadful ones; although, somehow, we always seem to be able to pull out something for the World Cup; it's the European Championships where we've uusually suffered our greatest frustrations and humiliations). And the weakest squad, too: with no established forward pair, no clear first-choice keeper, no proven wingers, no (fit) holding midfield player, multiple injuries limiting our choices in central defence, and no decent cover anywhere..... well, it was always a case of when (and how emphatically) rather than whether we were going to go out. And with our talismanic forward Rooney completely losing his form, we were, frankly, pretty damn lucky even to qualify out of our group. In our current state, there was probably no-one in the last 16 we could have given a decent game to - not even the likes of Ghana, Japan, or Slovakia, who were also a bit lucky to make it that far.

As the song says, though, the consistent underperformance of the England team in international football does rather sap your spirits, sometimes almost tarnishes the allure of the beautiful game itself:

So many jokes, so many sneers,

And all those oh-so-nears

Get you down, through the years...

Maybe next time. Or the time after. Or the time after that.....