BELO HORIZONTE // Prior to staging its final group game yesterday, Belo Horizonte’s stadium hosted three gripping encounters, where the atmosphere on and off the field swung between tense and celebratory.
Iran, Argentina, Belgium, Greece, Algeria and Colombia all played their part in making sure the World Cup will be remembered fondly in Brazil’s third biggest conurbation.
And then England played Costa Rica, a dead rubber as the Mineirao saw its first goalless game of the competition, a soporific affair that will leave little impression or stories for locals to tell future generations.
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England picked up their first point of the finals and avoided the ignominy of three straight defeats, Costa Rica finished group winners, the most unlikely of scenarios before the tournament. The team from a country of 4.8 million were comfortable in holding a side from a country with over 50 million inhabitants. Group D is the group of the minnows. The combined population of Costa Rica and Uruguay is eight million, England and Italy 110 million.
Costa Rica’s Colombian coach Jorge Luis Pinto said: “We’re far from thinking that we’ll be the laughing stock,” before the finals. As he punched the air at the final whistle, he’s had the last laugh over anyone who questioned his ultra committed team with their well organised defence and fleet-heeled strikers.
His dream is for Costa Rica to play Colombia in Rio’s Maracana. It doesn’t look quite as ridiculous as it did before the tournament.
The Central Americans became only the second team to defeat two previous world champions in their World Cup group. They would have been the first to beat three world champions had they won against an England side who made nine changes after their loss to Uruguay, but such trivialities matter little.
They are in the knockout stages as group winners and England are on their way back home after failing to get out of the group for the first time since 1958.
New-look England? Same old story. Brief moments of entertaining play, but little of it was sustained.
England are neither box office, nor good value for money; better entertainment can be found elsewhere. England have scored just five goals in their last eight World Cup games. Daniel Sturridge should have scored, but his profligate finishing meant England stayed goalless.
There is promise in England’s young players like Sturridge, but promise isn’t enough. The country which invented football doesn’t possess sufficient quality footballers to make an impact in the World Cup finals and it hasn’t for a decade.
England were failures in Brazil. Qualification from the group stage is not an unrealistic aim, nor is expecting to pick up more than one point from three games, but England continue to disappoint.
Despite containing some big name players who are proven performers in the world’s richest domestic league, the national team is consistently less than the sum of its parts. In Belo Horizonte, they were unable to break down a team ranked 34th in the world.
Given their side’s poor showing, the 5,000 England fans were in good humour. They sang Always look on the bright side of life and England’s going home, they waved inflatable World Cups too. Only sustained taunts of “Eliminados” (Eliminated) from Brazilian fans provoked a few to react and Brazilian riot police were called before the end of the game. Sad to say, watching them restore order was more interesting than following the events on the pitch.
England fans have been patient and provided sustained applause for manager Roy Hodgson and his players at the end. Perhaps England no longer expects.
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