Glass half full… Glass half full…

Time for my glass half full moment. Yesterdays game has certainly been on my mind and the result was disappointing for England, but no more than that.

The peerless British sports pages (and I mean that as a complement, mostly) have a couple of takes on this. First, it’s an error, an important game costing error, but just an error none the less and everything will be fine. The second and rather more reactionary story is that this was proof that England are not the world beaters they have been hyped up (by the same hacks, BTW) to be.

Time to look back in history. In 1966 (of course, it always comes back to 1966) England opened with a draw against Uruguay. Ultimately England triumphed and took possession of Jules Rimet for four years.

Then there was Italy in Espana 92. During the group stage Italy drew their three group matches. This was no group-of-death, the opposition was Poland, Peru and Cameroon. In the knockout stage they came alive as they sweep aside Argentina, Brazil and finally taking out West Germany 3-1 to lift the trophy.

To be fair that Italy side was full of world class quality, starting with Dino Zoff between the sticks, top scorer Paolo Rossi, Giuseppe Bergomi, Marco Tardelli and maybe the best sweeper ever in Gaetano Scirea (yes, I think better than Cruyff and Beckenbauer).

I admit that no matter how hard you squint at the team sheet, the England team does not have that depth of talent, but there is plenty of bright side there.

To even up the “they can still do it, look at Italy” optimism, the last six winners of the World Cup have all started the tournament with a win in their opening game…

I still believe, I still believe that England have the ability to win this. They really do need things to start going their way and after loosing Ledley King with a groin strain (on top of the Rio Ferdinand injury), JT passes that went out for throw ins and Rob Greens blunder I hope they have used up all their bad luck. Next game sees the return of Gareth Barry, this should give the side a new look going forward. We will find out more Friday, after drawing with the Americans we need to start thinking about goal difference, winning the group makes life a lot easier once we get to the knock out stages.

By the way, didn’t the Germans looked good today?