Goal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...... wait, what?

Although England were dumped out of the World Cup yesterday, comprehensively being beaten 4-1 by Germany on actual goals, they still came away with a victory in excuses making them the real winners on the day.

The team’s performance was uninspiring for the first half hour falling behind to two German goals — however in an action packed couple of minutes, England turned the dire performance around being awarded a solid excuse to send the Squad and English Press home happy with someone else to blame.

On the 37th minute England’s joint top goal scorer for the tournament, Matthew Upson, scored with a cushioned header from Steven Gerrard’s cross. Then shortly after the restart Frank Lampard came up with a piece of magic to give the England team what they were looking for. “I knew I had caught the ball sweetly from Jermain’s scrambled knock down and could see the keeper was scrambling” said a jubilant Lampard “at first I thought it was just an equalizer but when I caught sight of the referee not giving it we all celebrated the rock solid excuse, it’s better than a goal!”

England managed to hold on to the excuse for the remainder of the match. A clearly emotional Capello said after the game “it was important that we didn’t score after the disallowed goal to fully cement the excuse. Therefore after falling further behind it was of upmost importance not to send on Peter Crouch as he’s stupid enough to actually score a goal, instead I was able to once again rely on Emile Heskey…… and people thought I was stupid to pick him ……. who’s laughing now?!”

A confused Joe Cole added “We can really push on from here and I think we’re in with a great chance of winning the World Cup”.

So another World Cup campaign is over for England, seemingly moving ever closer to the day they take their ball back declaring “it’s our game, you’re not allowed to play any more”.

The question of whether Lampard and Gerrard can play together has finally been answered, until that is the qualifying games for the Euro 2012 begin, when the question will once again be asked “can they play together?” …… “no” …… “you’re right. But can they?” …… “no!!” …… “ok yep get ya. But can they?” It seems much in the same vein as John Motson, Death is the only true conclusion to this nagging quandary.

Though one thing for sure is flags of support will be coming down in England quicker on Monday than they did in Germany the day before ‘VE Day’ in 1945.