England definitely aren't playing now, the Post Mortem **Warning, this isn't remotely funny**

De Rossi the bearded wonder tried his best to break the 0-0

I'm not sure how funny today's post is going to be, if I'm being honest I'm not that fussed that England are out of the European World Cup, at no stage did I think that they had any chance of winning the thing. First things first, you know what I'm annoyed about, the fact that England forced the first 0-0 draw of what has been one of the best major international football tournaments I've watched in years. Here's one for all you Statos out there, if this tournament doesn't have any more 0-0's it will set a new record in the current formant of the European World Cup (16 teams) for having the least 0-0 draws.

Euro 96 - 3
Euro 2000 - 3
Euro 2004 - 3
Euro 2008 - 2

If that doesn't stop you getting a girlfriend nothing will (it didn't stop me, somehow??). It has been a great tournament and I just knew England would be the team to ruin it for everyone, they basically limply clung on for a draw for the last hour or so in the Quarter Final versus Italy, not good enough from an entertainment perspective. If I'm being honest I'm actually being harsh on England, but for the lack of goals the game was actually quite entertaining, how much of a say England had in how entertaining it was is debatable.

On to England's performance itself, I'm not going to write this rant out again, I've already emailed it today so I'm just going to do a copy and paste job. Apologies to @el_hugh_lmc who has already heard this, you'll have to just read it again. Just to give this some context, he felt we got more than we deserved and could have easily lost by 2 or 3, I agree saying:

I thought we offered more against France (is that because they themselves were pretty abject?) but can see where you’d draw similarities. Gerrard was Gerrard in my opinion, good/consistent when it comes to doing the footballing basics but no talisman when it comes to playing against a decent midfield. Even if you take the penalty out of it Ashley Young was awful (as was Milner but he always is)! I forgot he was (they were) on the pitch, he spent 120 minutes being Abate’s b*tch and playing double left back with Ashley Cole. And I remember the same against Ukraine, they just weren’t clinical enough to punish us!

I think we’ll never change because, keeping the ball is viewed negatively. People boo and moan at football matches when players pass backwards (well they do at West Ham, "The Academy of Football"). Regardless of what anyone, correctly, says about what we need to do at grass roots level we’ll always play the same way because nobody has the patience to persist with the possession game. We want instant results, which means charging forward regardless of your opponent, which works if they either adopt the same tactic or aren’t composed enough to deal with you, will always be the English way.

You could argue that my opinion is a tired and lazy regurgitated one, but unfortunately it's the truth. What shocks me even more (actually it doesn't, it happens every time we play in a major tournament) is the number of people who managed to kid themselves we'd do well. Saying that everybody's been really low key with the hype this year then going on about how well we'd done in the group stage isn't playing us down. The facts are, we clung on to a draw in the second half against a French team that never got out of second gear (urgh, what a clichéd phrase) and then proceeded to scrape past two average sides in the form of Ukraine (I'm still tempted to add "The" before) and Sweden, both of whom failed to qualify for the last World Cup. Both sides did enough to get at least a draw against us, if not win those games and what was the response? This. I genuinely wonder what planet some people are on? Do they realise that football exists outside of Ford Super Sunday and Barcelona/Real Madrid games in the Champions League? I know I'm being really harsh but how can we expect to improve if we can't even acknowledge that there is much better than us out there. God save English football!

Pirlo ran circles round Scott Parker

The positive from last night was the performance of one Andrea Pirlo, the man oozed class from kick off right up until he Panenka'd Joe Hart in the shoot out (apologies for the naff Tina Turner backing music). Meanwhile Ashley Young lived up to my expectations by whipping his penalty against the bar, the man whips EVERYTHING, I reckon he's even into bondage and his favourite dessert is probably whipped cream. Back to Pirlo, he ran the show and basically did what I'd like to see and England midfielder do one day, it's never going to happen though is it. Pirlo even Scott Parker'd Scott Parker and done him with one of those little circles that he does where he doesn't actually go anywhere but manages to get out of a tight spot with the ball (I can't find a video of it, look out for it the next time you see Parker play).

Ashley Young never comes out with the boys, word on the street is that he's whipped

Anyway, on to the Semis and hopefully no further 0-0's. Come on Germany, I need more points in the work prediction competition. As for England, they aren't even playing until the next World Cup (if they qualify), I reckon they'll win it, this is our Golden Generation...

Apologies for the lack of humour, I didn't feel it was warranted today.