Yeah we don't even need the game to be started in some places, we fight before the national anthem!

England played with a good attitude throughout and really tried to put it up to the Italians. I think Hodgson is a pretty decent coach.

The Sky Sports viewers are in for a treat this summer

Some interesting stats that Gary Lineker posted for the BBC this morning:

"Of the 14 teams we have seen so far, England had more shots on goal than any of them. Needless to say, conversion rate was not in the top 10.
"Even more stunning is that England's passing accuracy ranks second, just behind Italy, but ahead of Spain, Holland and Brazil. Go boys!
"Here's another beauty. For passing accuracy in the opposition's half, England come out on top. Stats exclude crosses where England are last."

Of course, you can prove anything with statistics - but we're used to seeing England come off terribly in these sorts of rankings, so they are a cautiously optimistic read.

What we lacked, I think, was the right runs inside the box to invite those "final balls" everyone keeps speaking of. When Italy sat back and put 10 men behind the ball, we continued to try and play counter attacking football which was unlikely to work through the crowds. We brought in three attacking midfield players, but did nothing up front to give them somewhere to aim.

There's going to be an almighty scrap for second place between Scotland, Poland and the Republic.....I think there's very little between the three teams and there may be a few draws. Martin O'Neill is going to have to engineer a win of some description over both of them, either home or away to give us a good chance of getting through.

I was surprised to hear that cramp is more likely to affect the younger players. I wrongly held the belief that it was more likely to affect the older players.

That's what I thought. I saw Costa Rica as England's last match and saw it as a banker. Thinking that even if we just drew a match all we had to do was beat Costa Rica in the final match and we had a good chance of getting through. Quite arrogant of me actually.

But after realising that Costa Rica can score goals against a vulnerable defence, I'm very cautious about that last match now.
Looks like we not only have to be at our best for the Uruguay match, we'll have to be equally on our game in the Costa Rica match too.
This group has turned out to be a real challenge.

Because Italy can still beat Uruguay in that match, and Costa Rica can still beat Italy, which would have both Italy and Costa Rica on 6 points as well as England.

Our group was always going to be the toughest to get out of as it's the only one with 3 top 10 sides in, and then Costa Rica are ranked 28th which isn't bad. Some were writing them off but they're clearly not a bad side.

Groups B & G are very strong also, but you'd expect Spain, Holland, Germany and Portugal to get out of them.

What was the result?

I don't think England's form can be judged until they play the next 2 games.
I thought they were average with a few sparks of good play.
They will have to improve to get out of the group and hope the other 3 beat each other.

I was quite happy with England's performance.........I thought it was our best in a tournament for years

We were just beaten by a better team

Where we are at the moment we can't expect to beat Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain etc.........they're better than us !

But it was very encouraging ........green shoots of recovery ?

England's corner taking and free kicks were woeful . Big room for improvement .

Oh for the days of Beckham, when every corner and free kick threatened goal .

The BBC news has just done interview with optimistic fans after performance last night.

2 of them were Scottish

Pirlo needs to teach them how it's done. I think my corner taking ability is on par with Rooney