This World Cup Problem... Just Numbers?

I know that every man and his dog has an opinion about why England, but here's one that I think everyone should seriously consider:

We're a (relatively) small country, and we play lots of other sports

The population of England is around 50,000,000. The population of Germany is around 80,000,000. Even without the fact that it's bigger, consider all the sports where we do as well as Germany (or better). Germany are nowhere to be seen in rugby or cricket.

But if you actually look at England's overall performance since 1966, this is certainly not a freakishly bad performance. There's 3 world cups that we didn't qualify for. We didn't get past the 2nd group stage in 1982.

And if you were there in 1990, England really got quite lucky to get where they got. They were unimpressive against Belgium and it looked like penalties until a last-minute goal by Platt. Against Cameroon, my memory was Cameroon played a load of really sloppy fouls and gave the game away.

What I'm trying to say is blame the manager all you like. The fact is that 1966 or 1990 might happen again, but chances are that it was a blip, and assuming we'll do much better than quarter-final is kidding yourself.

Man Utd Debt

Manchester United's owners are £1.1bn in debt - £400m more than previously known - after borrowing extensively against their shopping mall business.

BBC Panorama has found evidence that the Glazer family's debt levels may threaten their hold on the club.

What's Panorama doing being involved in a private business matter? I mean, if the Glazers go titsup, someone else will buy Man Utd at some sort of price.

City analyst Andy Green, 37, is the disgruntled Manchester United supporter who first uncovered the extent of the Glazers' debts.

Mr Green said: "They borrowed more money at inflated valuations right at the top of the cycle.

"These are people who tell us not to worry about Manchester United debt because they are great businessmen. In their core business in the US they got it absolutely wrong."

So what? Just take your support elsewhere. That's what you do with computers, tins of beans and movies, isn't it? Kevin Costner made a bunch of stinkers and everyone stopped going to see Kevin Costner movies for a while.

If you don't own a share in Manchester United, what do you care? This isn't like the works team where you know the players and support them out of camaraderie. You're supporting a PLC owned by Americans, living somewhere other than where you live, with a manager north of the border and players from at least 3 continents. You don't have a personal connection to Manchester United any more than you do to Dell or Tesco.

If they quit entertaining you at a price you like then go and spend your money elsewhere.