You can call it lack if confidence/ But to carry on living doesn't make no sense.

England's out of the World Cup, and the blame game's on. Rooney. Cristiano Ronaldo. Eriksson. Beckham. Lampard. The list is quite endless.

Sure, it's a side that has never won a penalty shoot-out at the World Cup, but that's a fact that has drawn comment even before the tournament kicked off.

Go on as the British press will about the team being overrated and useless, the fact remains that they kept the Portuguese from scoring for all of sixty minutes when down to ten men. They had to trade in Joe Cole for Crouch, but they made it work. It could easily be argued that with a little bit of luck, it could be them facing France the day after.

Rooney deserved to be sent off. Kicking Carvalho in the balls deserved a red, with or without the friendly intervention of Cristiano Ronaldo.

And the amount of criticism levelled at Lampard is beyond belief. If I hear the phrase 'Runner-up for Footballer of the Year' once more, I'm going to hit someone. Sure, he's been disappointing this World Cup. But he was England's top scorer in the qualifiers. His 16 goals for Chelsea this season ('05-'06) are an EPL record for a midfielder. And, I'm afraid you don't get 26 shots at goal in six matches unless you're doing something right. (Compare that with, say, Rooney? Or, to take a broader view, Ballack?)

Besides, if billing mattered so much, just where does the winner of the title stand? No goals for Brazil for -- get this -- one whole year. And counting.