Tag: England

The 200% World Cup: The Group D Final Round – Live!

The 200% World Cup: The Group D Final Round – Live!

Posted by | Jun 24, 2014 | , |

As with both of yesterday’s group finales, this afternoon’s pair of matches feature three teams battling over the two qualification spots and one useless team who are already out. In Group D, the useless team are of course England, a source of great pride for everyone back at home. However, the World Cup is always better for getting rid of the chaff and besides, a much-changed England team can still affect today’s action even if it isn’t in their own favour. Their opponents, Costa Rica, are already through to the knockout stages for only the second time in their history,...

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The 200% World Cup: Artist’s Impression, number 7

The 200% World Cup: Artist’s Impression, number 7

Posted by | Jun 20, 2014 | , , |

As the noted philosopher Chris Martin from Coldplay says, “everything’s not lost”. Only England could be so down and out yet do it in such a way that there is still a sliver of hope. After all, it’s the hope that kills you and as another noted philosopher stated last night, supporting England isn’t supposed to be easy. Still, as higher mathematicians everywhere are pointing out, the fat lady has not yet sung for England. But there’s every chance it’s just because she’s been delayed in traffic. For the most optimistic among you, our resident Emeritus Professor of Hard Sums...

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The 200% World Cup Breakfast, Day 8 – How To Follow A Narrative

The 200% World Cup Breakfast, Day 8 – How To Follow A Narrative

Posted by | Jun 20, 2014 | , |

And so it goes. Barring a sequence of events so improbable that the mathematics of it barely stands thinking about for too long, England are out of the 2014 World Cup finals after a performance against Uruguay that involved a considerable amount of toil for very little end result. There was a period of about five minutes, shortly after Wayne Rooney finally scored his first goal in the World Cup finals for his national team, when it looked as if they might just about go on and win last night’s match. The tempo of the game rose, Uruguay suddenly...

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The 200% World Cup: England vs Uruguay Live!

The 200% World Cup: England vs Uruguay Live!

Posted by | Jun 19, 2014 | , |

As the likes of Brazil and Spain have already found out to their costs, there doesn’t seem to be any such thing as “the easy way” at this World Cup finals. Not, of course, that the England national football team has much truck with the concept of such a thing. Where there might smith passage, England will usually find some degree of drama. Where we might expect drama, they will usually contrive to manfacture some sort of crisis, whether real or illusory. The atmosphere surrounding the England team this summer, has been very different to recent years. When they...

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The 200% World Cup: World Cup Breakfast, Day 3 – The Morning After The Night Before

The 200% World Cup: World Cup Breakfast, Day 3 – The Morning After The Night Before

Posted by | Jun 15, 2014 | , |

One of the curiosities of watching the England national team is the fact that, for all the doom and gloom that frequently surrounds the squad, once they are actually at the World Cup finals, they are normally very good at squeezing through its group stages, historically speaking. They haven’t failed to get over that first hurdle since 1958, and that year it required a play-off defeat at the hands of ther USSR to eliminate them. There are two ways to interpret such information. One is to believe that such historical information demonstrates a trend which should give England supporters...

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