I've been saying this s**t for days

There may also be another quartet with Portugal, Denmark, Chile and Paraguay.

If you're going to win the World Cup, you need some luck in the draw. World Cup winners play some duffers in the knockouts - simple as that.

Italy played Australia in R2 and Ukraine in the QFs. Then, once you get to the semis - anything can happen.

England got to the semis in 90 because we played Belgium then Cameroon. Yet in 98 (with arguably a better team) we came second in our group and our path to the final would have been Argentina, Holland, Brazil. Too much to do.

This time it looks like Germany, Argentina, Spain. We'll be out before the semis- simple as that. But if we'd finished top of our group, with confidence growing, beating Ghana, then Uruguay - who knows what could have happened.

We'll never know though.

Posted By: The Judge, Jun 23, 22:41:46