Congratulations to Brazil on winning the World Cup earlier today with a hard-fought but well-deserved 2-0 victory over Germany. The best team in the tournament won, so there can be no real complaints. It makes me feel a little bit better about England's Quarter-Final exit knowing the only team to beat us were the eventual winners. Since last Friday's defeat there has been a steady stream of sniping and whingeing about England from people in the media comparing us unfavourably with the Germans. While I think Rudi Voller has done a good job and their team is solid enough the only reason they got further in the tournament than we did is they met Brazil at a later stage. Oh that, and the benefit of a draw that opened right up for them and a Scottish referee who thinks it's perfectly acceptable for a defender on the goal-line to keep a ball out of the net by his hand.

It's not that I have anything in particular against this German team but it just winds me up the amount of flagellation our football writers are allowed to get away with re. our national side. Although I accept there's plenty of scope for improvement in a young team, we did well to get to the QFs of a tournament that for a long while we didn't even expect to qualify for, and only lost out to a team that (for the moment, anyways) were just simply better than us. Why is it so hard for some people to accept that?