England are out. Not that I was around to blog on it (I was away at Glasto) but having watched the game, I thought that by the time I got back England fans would be cursing the Uruguayan linesman, the goal that never was, and using it as yet another example of England’s much-bemoaned bad luck (like penalties, or cheating Argentines, or Sol Campbell getting goals mysteriously disallowed).
However, having read the papers and listened to the phone-ins, I was surprised to find that the Lampard non-goal has had surprisingly little apportion of blame. The way Germany took their third and fourth goals on the counter-attack, so fluidly and easily, suggested that even if the goal had been given, the Germans would have inevitably scored a winner as England pushed for a second.
Instead, the blame is either on the players, or Capello. A lot of it is incoherent, but at least it shows perhaps England fans are moving on from their paranoia that England are unlucky or conspired against, and that the problems lie on the pitch - this perhaps is the first sign of a collective move back to sanity when it comes to our national side.
