NOW I know I might be in the minority this morning, but I found Fabio Capello’s post-match comments much more distasteful than England’s performance on the pitch, or that decision to disallow Frank Lampard’s goal.

Until we had something to fuel our sense of national injustice, the Germans had been by far the better side, and should have been way out of sight. England have been as poor as they had during the entire tournament, and that includes the 90 minutes of snore-inducing football we saw against Algeria.

To then go, as Capello did, and allege that we had “played well” in the last four games – which to even the most uneducated World Cup viewer had stunk the place out – leaves a very bad taste in my mouth indeed.

So bad was the performance over the group stages, and in yesterday’s 90 minutes in particular, that I think the Football Association should be thinking long and hard whether he is the right man to lead us into the European Championships in two years time.

And furthermore, if I had got so many major calls wrong at a tournament like this, I’d be contemplating throwing in the towel and taking up that plush job at Inter Milan anyway.

Crying into my beer alongside so many England supporters last night, I found myself wondering why I had invested so much time, money and effort into following the supposed “Golden Generation,” who have thus far shown themselves to be anything but.

Why have we elevated this bunch above the rest? Or have we allowed ourselves to get swept away with the fact that the Premier League is the richest competition in the world, and therefore the national side should follow in its gold-laden path?

I’ll admit, I thought Capello was the answer when he was appointed as the national team coach – bringing with him a fearsome reputation as a disciplinarian and a shedload of trophies in club football.

But like Eriksson and McClaren before him, he has failed to gel together a squad that on paper looks to be among the best on the planet, but so often shows itself to be merely a collection of individuals.

We could sit here, moan and groan about the lack of a video referee, and perhaps hold onto it in the same way we did Diego Maradona’s Hand of God in 1986.

But there’s something more fundamentally wrong with English football – and it’s something no end of bunting, replica shirts or clever advertising campaigns will ever be able to fix.