I can't help but think that secretly...

the players are happier to be in the tougher half of the draw in that it takes the pressure off.

If they lose to Germany/Argentina etc they can still go out and be 'brave' failures (unless they're really sh*t, which obvoiously is a possibility) but they would be expected by the media to stuff Ghana/Uruguay/South Korea and so would set themselves up to get absolutely slaughtered when they go out.

The England squad mentality these days (largely thanks to media/public attitude) is governed more by fear than ambition - what is the worst that could happen? And going out to Germany or Argentina isn't the worst - going out to one of the 'lesser' teams is.

Posted By: mr carra, Jun 25, 08:39:14