Im afraid to say, this can be so because we havent beaten a top nation in a knock out game of football in a major tournament in god know's how long.
The simple fact is technically, our footballers are no where near the level of the top tier of nations in world football. We simply cannot compete in midfield.
I personally can have no criticism of the performance of england tonight or thoroughout the tournament, in the same way I wouldnt be able to criticise championship team if they defended for their lives against a premier league team. Our biggest problem is we seem to think england are a 'premier league' national team. This simply isnt true, and until the fa accept it isnt true the same thing will happen again, and again, and again, and again.
Be honest - if we had scraped through this game against italy, what would your prediction for the germany game be? Mine - it would be as bad as bloemfontein, if not worse.
England's squad is made of extremely good players, but none of the players out there tonight are technically[/B] extremely good. And it showed - when the chips were down they couldnt keep hold of that damn ball for more than 4 passes. Doesnt matter how much you run, doesnt matter how much of a lionheart you are, if you cant keep hold of the friggin ball it will tell. Italy could have scored 3 or 4 tonight. If they had been more clinical they would have had the game sown up in the 90. They kept on creating chances because they were given england the run around, and england kept giving them the ball back time after time after time.
Im not doom mongering (believe it or not) - i think roy hodgson has done a fantastic job in the time available and i dont really think many england players underperformed as such. They just arent as good as everybody thinks they are...