Conquistadors

One hex can be undone but two is too much, and England failed miserably in that task today.

One hex can be undone but two is too much, and England failed miserably in that task today. Up against Luis Felipe Scolari, who has booted them out of the last two international tournaments, England were then faced with a penalty shootout — which they went on to lose with minimum fuss, their fourth such defeat in a row.

The shootout brought about its own heroes and flops. Only the hardest of hearts would criticize failure in a shootout yet for England this is a chronic syndrome and reflects more a lack of nerve than of technique. You would normally expect Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to convert blindfolded but today they were up against Ricardo, not usually referred to as a great keeper but in outstanding form when it mattered.

The defeat brings to an end the reign of Sven-Goran Eriksson, the Swede who initially wowed England with his intellect and cool demeanour but entered freefall, and encountered withering criticism, through a series of personal, professional and on-field bungles.

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He will be replaced by Steve McClaren, his deputy who spent much of his time on the touchline today. For 120 minutes before that, though, the world had to suffer the agony of England and Portugal playing dreadful football, the first sorely lacking in imagination, the other unwilling to apply it.

It seemed as though they had been lulled into torpor by the heat and humidity (30 degrees outside the enclosed stadium).

The only drama before the shootout came in the dismissal of Wayne Rooney, the England striker, on rather dubious grounds. He got into a tangle with Ricardo Carvalho and, in that rush, appeared to kick him below the belt.

It’s not clear whether the card was for that or the subsequent pushing of Cristiano Ronaldo but either way it appeared too harsh.

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His sending off, on the hour, robbed England of the momentum they were building with Joe Cole on the left and Aaron Lennon on the right and Rooney himself just beginning to find his rhythm.

Down to 10 men, and Cole off for Crouch, England were short on creativity but big on heart; Hargreaves, especially, grew as a player today – he was rightly named Man-of-the-match—and even Crouch tried some fancy footwork. But there was no way round the Portugal defence, expertly by Carvalho and Meira, and Petit and Tiago playing ahead of them.

The old cliche‚ about a penalty shootout is that neither team deserves to lose. Today, Portugal and England turned that on its head: Neither team deserved to win.

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