KOS Media news editor Simon Robinson looks to avoid World Cup heartache.

 

Dear rest of the world, my name is Simon Robinson, I’m a 27-year-old football-loving journalist from England and I would like you to adopt me.

With the World Cup just nine days away I have decided I no longer wish to go through the torment, anguish and despondency that come with being an ever-optimistic England supporter.

Therefore I want one of the other 31 World Cup finalists to take me in and accept me as one of their own for the duration of the tournament.

My only proviso is that you can’t be a certified member of England’s ‘perennial underachievers’ group.

This rules you out Holland and Portugal. 

I’m not necessarily looking for one of the big boys – take a bow Brazil, Germany and Spain - to adopt me temporarily; this isn’t about winning.

I’m just sick of supporting England’s world-class team of multi-millionaires, who get knocked out of the competition with a whimper, on penalties, in the quarter finals. Again.

So come on the relative minnows of Mexico, Korea, Russia, Slovenia et al. I’m all yours.

I’ll back anyone so long as I don’t have to go through another international football competition as a Three Lions badge-kissing Englishman.

My first proper taste of that crushing ‘England have blown it’ sensation that millions of us up and down the land know so well came in Italia ’90.

I remember the tournament fondly as the Scots lost to those footballing giants Costa Rica in their opening game and failed to make it out of the group stages.

But England’s bid to win the cup came to a shuddering halt in the semi-finals, when those German penalty-taking machines booted us back to Blighty.

France 1998 saw Argentina beat us on penalties in the first knock out round.

Four years later we were undone in the quarter finals of the Korea/Japan World Cup when pony-tailed goalkeeper David Seaman let Brazil’s Ronaldinho timid freekick drift over him into the net.

Then at Germany 2006 it was back to the familiar penalty shoot out heartbreak, this time Portugal took their turn to send us home at the quarter final stage.

Failure after failure. And this doesn’t take into account our performances at the European Championships, in which we’ve underachieved at a startlingly similar level.

I suppose our record speaks for itself and we – England football fans – should lower our expectations ahead of South Africa 2010 and be happy to notch up another quarter final appearance.

But I can’t do that.

With the squad we have we should be reaching the semi-finals on a regular basis. We should be brushing the weaker teams to one side, showing the footballing world that we, the inventors of the beautiful game, can play it!

But we all know it’ll be the same old story come the first England game on Saturday, June 12; we’ll scrape through the group stages with the management team and ‘knowledgeable’ football pundits promising that the team will “deliver when it matters”; followed by a dismal display in the quarters and yet another penalty shoot out disaster.

I can’t go through that again. And that’s why I’m defecting to Ivory Coast, New Zealand or Greece.

Prime Ministers and Presidents please get in touch.