Ugly Football, Ugly Manager, Ugly World Cup Champions?

"To win the World Cup, I am prepared to do whatever. If that means to play bad football all the way, okay, come on, who cares? ... I don't know how many other games you see but if you look at Ghana, they have been playing wonderful football and it's been the same with Ivory Coast, Holland and Spain. And where are they now? They are back at home."

Who cares indeed? As much as I would love for England to play artistic football all the way to the final, I am perhaps more concerned about their ability to get there.

No one bitched about Italy's negative take on football en route to the 1994 World Cup final. But certainly England has not even shown the organizational fortitude that Italian side showed. In fact, England has not shown any organizational fortitude at all.

So as such, I am inclined to agree with the assessment of Alex, one of our writers, that this is indeed England's best chance to win the World Cup. To quote a commentator who spoke about one of Manchester United's successful league campaigns in the last 90s - "It's not about the 6-0 wins when you play well but the 1-0 wins you get when you play badly." They played like shit against Paraguay but still managed to eke out a victory. Same goes for T&T. The defense decided to play 'Let's See Who Makes Stupider Mistakes' but still they rode out a 2-2 draw.

So now the bites are finally hitting the bone. In Portugal they finally face an opponent that can bury you deeeeeep if you give them a go. This would be a stern test of not only England's tournament resolute but the potency of the run of good luck they've been riding. But if they survive this playing sub-par football like they've been then maybe the cup is destined for England after all.

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