Recently by Mark Douglas

I got an email the other day, probably the same one that has pinged into your inbox over the last 24 hours. Highly libellous, it was, but salacious enough to pique my interest - not least because it claimed to have the inside track on why England's World Cup bid failed.

The gist of it was a re-heated rumour given an England twist and for about five seconds I could feel the fury building inside me. He did what? With who? And that's the reason why it's going to be 48 years of hurt by the time we rock up in Rio...

Then I thought about it, got my emotions back in check and realised that the original rumour was a load of malicious nonsense with no foundation. I don't know where it originated from, but whoever started the poisonous chain mail is probably sitting back in his bedroom somewhere feeling pretty pleased with himself.

It had been coming. June 27, 2010 was at least four years in the making for the 'Golden Generation'.

England have been due a good hiding at the hands of one of football's progressive superpowers for a while now. That they have been able to dodge a bullet for so long is solely down to the fact that international football so rarely brings them into direct competition with one of the six or seven sides capable of exposing our glaring deficiencies.

OK, there are friendly matches against the big guns from time to time but they are notorious for creating a false impression. It is at tournaments where we really get a sense of our place in the international hierarchy and yesterday's denouement was every bit as depressing as I'd feared.

Do you remember the Graham Taylor documentary 'The Impossible Job'? The then England boss, in a move borne of either extreme naivety or rock solid confidence that we'd qualify, agreed to allow cameras to follow him during the 1994 qualification process with fascinating results.

Well, here's a glimpse into what would happen if Fabio Capello agreed to the same thing..

A Spanish TV channel employed a lip reader to make sense of Capello's volcanic touchline eruptions - and discovered that even Stuart Pearce is submissive round the England boss. A fascinating (and hilarious) insight into what makes the Italian tick - and is there a little hint of humour from Don Fabio in there too...?

The 'big five' is a term used by game hunters to describe the most difficult animals in Africa to hunt by foot, but it could just as easily refer to England's treacherous route to the World Cup final in Soccer City.

OK, we only have to slay three big beasts to make it to Johannesburg but still - daunting isn't the word.

A vibrant, fearless Germany on Sunday before a potential meeting with free-wheeling tournament favourites Argentina next week. And then, just when optimism about possibly matching the achievements of 1966 would be legitimate, Brazil emerge as potential semi-final opponents. That would be the same Brazil that England have never defeated in a World Cup finals.

Given all the soul searching that has followed England's insipid stalemate with Algeria on Friday, it seems flabbergasting that no-one has pointed out the one area where vast improvement is required to avoid the unthinkable this afternoon: set pieces.

Forget the thus far unsuccessful search for the real Wayne Rooney or the infernal debate over balance in the midfield - if England don't start to deliver more of a threat in dead ball situations they're finished.

Being able to deliver a free-kick or a corner with power and pin-point accuracy has been the thing that has set England apart in recent years. It has contributed roughly a third of all of our goals in major tournaments recently - two out of the six we scored in Germany, three out of six in 2002 and three out of seven in 1998.

I committed sacrilege yesterday.

Criticising this great collection of Spanish players, it would seem, is tantamount to treason in a World Cup year.

Well, when I say criticised I should probably put it in context. I was as mesmerised as the next person by Spain's balletic style as they pulverised a very weak Honduras side but I got decidedly irked by the hyperbole being lavished at their feet by ITV commentator Peter Drury.

The football has improved after a soporific start but even so, this World Cup is now destined to be remembered for what happened off the pitch rather than on it.

We've had sporadic instances of player power before (Roy Keane's exit in 2002, for example), but nothing like the tensions that have undermined the French and English World Cup campaigns.

On an explosive Sunday afternoon, the villainous French class of 2010 joined Harald Schumacher, Rivaldo and Frank Rijkaard in the World Cup hall of shame while certain members of England's 'Golden Generation' once again laid their breathtaking arrogance bare for all to see.

England's failure in Cape Town was so complete that it is virtually impossible to pin-point one distinct reason for it. Here, there and everywhere there was cause for concern as England combined with an equally ponderous Algeria to deliver quite possibly the worst 90 minutes of any World Cup in living memory.

But it seems clear to me that, in trying to accommodate one player of supreme ability, England are engaging in a folly of monumental proportions. I speak, unfortunately, of Frank Lampard.

Lampard has been an England regular for six years and in that time has delivered only a handful of performances that could truly be regarded as international standard.

Here's a quiz question for you, one that causes even those with an encyclopedic knowledge of football to pause for a minute before delivering the answer.

Whose penalty miss finally did for England in the penalty shoot out that followed their epic last 16 clash with Argentina at the 1998 World Cup? You got it yet? The answer, to save you from resorting to Google, is former Newcastle and Leeds war horse David Batty.

Funny how many people can't remember that, yet recall with pin-point precision that it was Gareth Southgate who rolled his spot kick meekly into Andreas Kopke's hands on that balmy night at Wembley in Euro '96, or that Stuart Pearce and David Beckham missed crucial penalties during England's exits from major tournaments in 1990 and 2004.*

I'm not oblivious to the teething problems of this World Cup, but I can't help feeling that cynicism is a bigger threat to this tournament that the ball, the vuvuzelas or the overly defensive tactics on show.

Granted, those three things have contributed to a slow beginning to a World Cup that arrived on a tsunami of hype and superlatives and is yet to deliver.

But I sensed a shift in the momentum of the tournament yesterday, a gradual moving through the gears after an underwhelming start. The Spanish struggle to break through a well-organised Switzerland side was fascinating to this observer, even if it was another triumph of regimented organisation over attacking flair.