World Cup 2010: England are discordant, clueless – but not hopeless

We are England, and we try to bore people to death for 80 minutes before sending Crouchy on to see if a taller person can make a difference. We still do this, even though we have hired an expensive Italian coach to show us how to play football properly. We are England, and in all honesty we were expecting Wayne Rooney to have weighed in by now, but our get-out-of-jail card is stuck up our sleeve. Yet even though we are England, we can still have a good World Cup. This is not a supposition based on the last couple of matches, obviously. It is based on the balance of probability, which is a tricky proposition in what is turning out to be a splendidly unpredictable tournament, but offers more realistic hope than Emile Heskey scoring a goal or England finding a reliable centre-half. If the position is that England have to beat Slovenia to advance to the knockout stage, then that cannot be a bad position in which to be. Slovenia are no mugs, they beat Russia to qualify and all that, but England would surely have settled beforehand for such a reasonable deal. If they wouldn't, they have no business dreaming of winning World Cups. Even the USA put three goals past Slovenia, after all, and would have beaten them had not the referee detected something microscopic wrong with the last one. Wretchedly as they have been playing, England are entitled to feel that they have the experience and character to deal with this situation. They have far more tournament nous clocked up than Slovenia, and rather than beating themselves up over opportunities missed they should keep a cool head and appreciate the excellent position they are fortunate enough still to occupy. England are not as badly off as the Ivory Coast and Portugal, for example, who must hope to qualify from a group containing Brazil. Neither are they in as dire a situation as France, who could win their final game resoundingly and still go out. England are not even as badly off as Spain, who arrived as tournament favourites and lost their opening game to Switzerland. If that result was the most stunning of the tournament so far, Germany's defeat by Serbia notwithstanding, it should be remembered that Switzerland themselves were involved in the most surprising result of the qualifying phase. In Zurich in September 2008, in what was only Ottmar Hitzfeld's second game in charge, Switzerland were beaten at home by Luxembourg. Even in the land of the cuckoo clocks, that was a hard result to swallow. The day England are beaten at home by Luxembourg will be the day the coach is imprisoned in the Tower of London, or we give up football as a national sport and turn our attention to something we are still quite good at, such as track cycling or darts. But Switzerland did not sack Hitzfeld or go into national meltdown, they just got on with qualifying, winning the return match 3-0, and made it to South Africa in time to be the surprise package of the first round. All of which underlines the point that anything is still possible and it is futile burying one's head in one's hands over bad results. Italy don't do it. They won the World Cup in 1982 after drawing all three group games, and they will not panic, with a final game against Slovakia, even if they only pick up a point against New Zealand today. If Fabio Capello cannot get this message through to his players he should take them one day to a SEAT dealership in Ettelbruck (I assume that's Luxembourg), where one Alphonse Leweck sells cars, trailers and the occasional chainsaw. Rejoicing in the nickname Fonz, Leweck plays for the Etzella club, where attendances average around 180, and he was the scorer of the goal that beat the Swiss. Clearly Capello will not have time to do that before the Slovenia game, so instead of digging up Luxembourg's version of the Fonz he should simply remind his players that England were in situations similar to this in 1986 and 1990, two World Cups that are now quite fondly remembered. Indeed, there are plenty of people who will tell you England were good enough to win Italia 90, even though they began the tournament playing terrible football. While there does not appear to be a positional or formational tweak Capello can make to transform his team's fortunes overnight, the next game is as much about mental strength as footballing ingenuity. It is a winner-takes-all situation and, if Steven Gerrard and John Terry are the players they think they are, they should have the experience to cope. How many of Slovenia's players will have appeared in Champions League finals? How many have even reached a stage in the World Cup where it is possible to go out on penalties? The evidence thus far suggests England will not set the tournament on fire or beat a capable Latin team even if they do reach the knockout phase, but you never know. You have to put yourself in a position to advance first, then see how the draw works out and hope some footballing momentum develops along the way. We are England and we can still do that much. There is no more margin for error but Slovenia, too, can still fail, and they cannot feel confident about having to qualify at England's expense. England have no right to be confident, but unless they feel like joining Patrice Evra in acknowledging they are not a great team and have a much greater resemblance to a small footballing nation, they must not defeat themselves before the match is played. A footballing failure is bad enough. A failure of nerve would be much worse.