England 1
Italy:2
Found myself rooting for Italy in this one because nothing, NOTHING, makes for such gristley grizzled grizzle grist for the Brit media as their quadrennial soccer world cup losses. They love a whinge, but a soccer world cup loss whinge? Epic. They run with it at their feet, to the manor borne, reveling in the gossamer touch all up and down their wangers as they pound themselves into emotionally disfigured misery. The blogosphere, the forisphere, online newspapers, the whole lot erupt as flaming, churning chunderbowls of aggrieved, distraught yet strangely comfortable and familiar evisceration. It's their thing. "It's going to rain today and we're going out in the quarters on penalties." How about staging a World Cup for whinging? No point even holding such a thing. A quietly ceremonial quadrennial coronation would suffice. "Here you go. You're still the best.""