OK, I'll be the first to admit it, Spain are not the new Brazil after all but still the same shedload of underachieving tournament bottlers. How silly of me to have got overexcited about a 4-0 first-game thrashing of Ukraine, who have ended up going further in the competition than Spain by reaching the last eight.
So now that my credentials as a tipster/football analyst/sentient human being are thoroughly shot, I might as well add that the whole second round of World Cup 06 has been rubbish. Brazil v Ghana was just about all right I suppose, a decent game with a lot of incident and by no means the cakewalk many supposed, but what about the rest? Germany beat Sweden in about 15 minutes, which put England's struggle in the group game into perspective.
England's game against Ecuador must have had football fans around the world switching off in disbelief, while insomniacs are believed to be queuing up for the video. That's not World Cup football, that was Everton v Tranmere.
I'm suggesting Ecuador were Tranmere, by the way, just to clear up any doubt. England were certainly no better than Everton. As for Switzerland v Ukraine, that was like watching Sunderland v Ipswich, except Sunderland and Ipswich probably take better penalties.
Argentina were only OK, an unconvincing performance redeemed by a great goal, and at least Portugal v Holland was a good old-fashioned scrap. Italy did what they do best and "won" a penalty in the last minute against naive Australia, but I can't get too upset about that because the Aussies would never have scored against that defence in a hundred years. It was another crap game. We see stuff like that every week at home. It's called football.
Whatever happened to World Cup football?
Paul Wilson is the Observer's chief football writer
