The World Cup is amazing so far - enjoy it and don't worry too much about England

The biggest prize

If you like your team to compete but ultimately lose "Eddie Edwards-style", England will fit you like a Cup Final suit.

We've never quite shaken off that "it's the taking part that counts" hint of amateurism that enabled us to export our Beautiful Game to the world.

"We have Barkley, Sturridge, Sterling, Henderson and the Ox for the future", they say. Fearless, talented and if not millionaires already, the Premier League will take care of that within months.

England's future looked bright with Gazza too as we watched the semifinal defeat to Germany at Italia 90. Remember that? It was the last time Daft-As-A-Brush shone on the world stage. 

As for the Liverpool players, let's see how good they are competing in the Champions League. 

They're our England backbone because Fergie retired and Manchester United's youngsters lost their father figure at the same time as Rodgers created his. 

I'm too long in the tooth to worry about England's inevitable defeats. We've sacrificed our national team in favour of the Premier League for two decades, so enjoy your club, whatever its division.

And support England with the same approach English football treats it - as a bit of summer fun.

For all the attention foisted on Roy's boys, club football is the focus in England for the foreseeable future. 

England head to Miami with more to prove

So what did we learn from Peru? They're among South America's weakest teams, haven't won for a year and from time-to-time looked a bit Arthur Daley with some questionable behaviour. 

Certainly more thought should be given to our friendly opposition. England public are too football-sophisticated to be soft soaped with such poor fare laid on at Wembley.

But there was no shortage of endeavour on our side. Daniel Sturridge, with his fourth goal in eleven internationals opened up a game in need of a goal and Leighton Baines is a real weapon from set pieces. He took the corner for the other two goals scored by Cahill and Jagielka. 

Joe Hart looked assured when needed keeping Peru out in the first half. 

But while defence seemed able, a question mark hangs over Glen Johnson, again found short against pretty ordinary opposition.

Roy Hodgson likes Johnson's ability to attack but is that a price too large to pay for his defensive inadequacies?

Wayne Rooney, who flatters to deceive in major tournaments wasn't short of application and commitment, but his lack of key match fitness reduced his ability to really make a difference. 

When substituted during the second half to give Roy a look at others, it was to disguise the fact he needed to be replaced. 

He needs match fitness after injury to realise his true potential.

Adam Lallana showed touches of class and his element of surprise could reap huge dividends in Brazil. 

When Raheem Sterling came on, his direct running at Peru gave England an attacking impetus and dimension missing up till then. 

But international football is too tactical for that kind of game.

I'd love to be proved wrong but we could be found wanting at this World Cup. Italy, Uruguay look weighty opposition. By the time we face Costa Rica in the final qualifying game, will it be too late?

Yes, there'll be a spirit of adventure about new young players given a first opportunity but if we're gung ho in Brazil, we'll be mopped up and eaten for breakfast by more experienced opposition. 

England busking it all the way to Euro 2012

 Robben's strike: our statues get a great view of it.

England fans will breathe a collective sigh of relief as caretaker boss Stuart Pearce has declared, "I'm short term" after masterminding England's latest gulf in class.

Because a 3-2 friendly defeat to Holland leaves us nowhere in particular ahead of a big date in the diary.

With Euro 2012 three months away, Pearce mooted he was Plan B before kick-off. He explained he was there if Harry Redknapp (or anyone else) wasn't going to succeed Fabio Capello permanently.

Now he's incentivising the FA powerbrokers to get a replacement in as soon as possible. The Under-21 boss is committing to the senior job for however long it takes, so let's hope that's not too long.

Because at Wembley, England were busking it. After the Capello years, there was new thinking at the helm but with little commitment to it. We've just chucked an eye-watering £24m at Fabio's four-year plan: our reward for it? we're fifth favourites going into a major tournament.

Scott Parker was captain instead of stand-out Stevie and there was no room for Theo Walcott and Ashley Cole who's experience might've been regarded more highly considering the quality of the opposition.

Arjen Robben's opening goal showed the huge lack of experience we had against the truly world-class. His darting dribble and run cut a slice through our defence with almost no resistance, and as Robben's second goal confirmed deep into injury time, he posed a potent threat throughout.

Now this'll never happen. Nice pic though!

Then again there were some positives: no one was afraid to play, Daniel Sturridge, Adam Johnson and Danny Welbeck all dribbled there way into creating chances and Parker wore the armband with aplomb and responsibilty.

But after the England fight back, the Dutch deserved their winner. The composure of the Orange was greater - as was their sheer ability.

So a 3-2 defeat with the order of the goals falling in exactly the same way as England's darkest night at New Wembley - that defeat to Croatia which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory to deny us a Euro 2008 place.

Pearce is not cut out for the England job and doesn't rouse his troops as a boss. That's a strange thing to say about a man who inspired such passion and leadership among fans and teammates alike as a player.

Roll on Redknapp's arrival. He may not be the master tactician a la Mourinho, but as Tottenham's Roman Pavlyuchenko will testify, he will get his charges to "run around a bit" in pursuit of glory.

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Say NO to video evidence in football

Welcoming Simon Manuel to the Soccermongery writers parade - and what a debut! He's with FIFA all the way on rejecting the use of video evidence. Here's the nightmare scenario.

It’s Sunday 13 July 2014. The World Cup Final at The Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. England v Germany.

It’s the last minute of extra time with the teams locked at 2-2 and England substitute Daniel Sturridge is clean through on the German goal. As he’s poised to shoot the referee blows his whistle and brings play back. Germany have called for their last video referral.

They’re claiming a goal after Lukas Podolski’s snap shot cannoned off the bar and bounced towards the line moments before 'keeper Joe Hart’s long clearance released Sturridge. Germany are convinced they’ve scored but England are also considering a referral as video evidence has revealed that the corner that led to Podolski’s shot should have been a goal kick after brushing a German boot on the way out.

After viewing video replays from 9 different angles over 4 minutes the goal line evidence is inconclusive and play resumes with a drop ball in the centre circle. The match peters out and the Germans go on to win on penalties.

Far fetched? Maybe the bit about England getting to the World Cup final but the video referral? Not if FIFA bows to the views of the likes of Arsene Wenger, Terry Venables, Mark Hughes and Alex McLeish to name but four of the managers calling for football to follow the likes of cricket, rugby league and American football and use video technology in some form or other.

After Thierry Henry’s infamous handball knocked the Republic of Ireland out of the World Cup, Wenger insisted that referees can't cope and need external help: "Football accepts that a billion people see it, one guy doesn't see it and it is the one who prevails. It cannot work,"

Last Saturday, after his Birmingham side were denied an 81st minute goal after Liam Ridgewell’s header was adjudged not to have crossed the line, manager Alex McLeish said: “In key moments like that, they are actually doing the officials a disservice by not using [video technology]”.

Ironically, McLeish’s rant came on the same day that FIFA announced that they'd ruled out the introduction of video technology to assist officials during games thereby ending all further experiments with goal-line technology. Most of the response of the press was that this was just another example of how out of step FIFA is with what football fans really want. The Daily Telegraph’s headline read “What are FIFA’s technophobes afraid of” and sarcastically mocked FIFA by suggesting that FIFA thought football was already perfect and couldn’t be improved.

Football isn’t perfect but I think FIFA’s decision is nothing less than the saviour of the game we love. If goal line technology was introduced it wouldn’t be long before teams were allowed a set number of video reviews similar to those already in place in American football and recently introduced in cricket – farcically in the case of the non dismissal of Graeme Smith in the final England v South Africa test match in Johannesburg.

FIFA’s main reason for rejecting technology in football is that it would disrupt the flow of the game. Of that there can be no doubt. The great genius of football is the fact that the game can change so quickly. Brian Clough famously said it only takes a second to score a goal. He was only exaggerating a bit. Wayne Rooney’s brilliant goal against Arsenal at The Emirates this season was scored a mere 9.2 seconds after Ji-Sung Park had won the ball in his own penalty area.

Advocates of technology say that the money in the game means you have to move with the times and that’s it’s too important not to use because football is now big business.

But football isn’t about money, it’s about sport. That’s the whole point of it. It’s not the fact that football is big business that makes us go straight to the back page of the newspaper every morning or tune to Sky Sports news every time we turn on the TV. And it’s not because football is big business that people like Southampton fan Vince Reeves recently risked missing the birth of his first child so that he could keep his place in the queue to get tickets for the recent 5th round FA Cup match against Portsmouth.

Football isn’t real life, it’s a long running soap opera that brings out every human emotion: joy, despair, frustration, deceit, respect, love, fear….the list is endless. It appeals to us on an instinctive level. A teams of humans against another team of humans officiated by humans.

The call for technology is just an attempt to bring football into real life. To bring order to chaos, to impose the CCTV culture of our age onto sport. FIFA should be applauded for standing firm against this. What makes football so compelling is its innate unpredictability. Maradona’s “hand of god” and the referee’s failure to spot it are as much part of the game as the sublime goal that followed.

Football teaches teamwork, loyalty and discipline but most of all it teaches everyone who has ever watched or played a game that football, like life, is not fair. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t. You can appeal to a higher being, in football the referee, and sometimes he answers your prayers and sometimes he doesn’t. On occasion he get’s it plain wrong just like in life the big man upstairs doesn’t help when your wife runs off with your best mate or your prized BMW gets nicked.

Pundits on TV say things like the referee “should” have awarded a penalty or free-kick or a player “should” have passed or “should” have scored. It’s as if there is a blueprint that ought to be followed. One day a game will be played when technology will make sure that every refereeing decision is correct, every pass will be perfect and every chance that “should” be scored will go in. It will be the most perfect game ever, and also the most boring. Football will have died.

Fast forward again to the Maracana. The referee hasn’t blown and Sturridge coolly rounds the keeper and slots the ball into an empty net. England have won the World Cup for the first time in 48 years. Video replays show that Sturridge was marginally offside when he received the ball but hey, that’s football.

Click here for England's World Cup bugging tapes!

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