Even in Victory, English Fans Fuss

It’d be such a shame to reside in England during a World Cup yet witness not one single patented national tizzy over some dreary early-World Cup performance by the England team.

So I salivated just before England played Paraguay on Saturday, knowing a match against South America’s harmless last qualifier held two prospects for English national-tizzy production.

One: A goal-less draw might loose a breathtaking national tizzy and line sidewalk newsstands with the kind of thick, black, national-tizzy headlines that help make this island nation so incomparable.

Two: A narrow and comatose victory might bring just enough tizzy elements to give a taste.

Now, I do wish England would win this World Cup because I’d like to see what England would look like thereafter, and because England hasn’t won the World Cup in 40 years.

At 2 p.m. on a sun-drenched Saturday, London pub crowds craned their necks upward toward plasma TVs, and hair-salon owners with empty styling chairs sat on counters watching portables, and the radio call of the match blared from inside working dry-cleaner vans with open windows, and it’s amazing to occupy a nation so galvanized.

After only 164 seconds, David Beckham scored a goal that grazed off Paraguayan hair on its way in and threatened right there to stave off any glorious post-match resentment.

But England’s 1-0 win came only after a wretched second half, a festival of listlessness and hopelessness, a kill-your-television closing hour, a span of precious time spent focused on a pitch strewn with players suffering either heat exhaustion or metastasizing boredom.

And out frothed a tizzy Saturday afternoon and evening filled with inarguable insights:

England’s over-hyped. What lousy tactics. What shoddy passing. Too much reliance on set pieces. What inept attacking. The coach is clueless. Why is Owen Hargreaves on the team? Why isn’t Jermaine Defoe on the team? Why is Michael Owen removed after only 55 minutes? The coach is clueless. What a lousy second half. Why can’t we ever handle the heat? Why does Beckham spiral into mirage and just start plunking long balls?

We’re lucky we have such an easy group. Quarterfinals, at best. The coach is clueless. We pay him four million pounds a year? Then, the best: Sven must go.

Sven’s the coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson. He resigned months ago, effective after the World Cup. But he needs to leave now, because two or three or four more weeks might prove unbearable.

Better yet, this fine umbrage promised to stretch out across the coming days, fizzling only gradually before England’s second group match Thursday against Trinidad and Tobago.

Just then, though, late Saturday afternoon in Europe, two other Group B teams finished their match, and Trinidad and Tobago had played Sweden to a spirited, goal-less draw, and now a mere win over Trinidad and Tobago will secure England’s passage into the round of 16.

This tedium of success threatened to dim the urgency of the 50 million coaches here, but somehow, they managed to keep the flame of resentment flickering into the night.

It’s nothing less than a tourist attraction, this kind of manic scrutiny that comes from eyeballing and analyzing one team too intently. We lack it in America, except in Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, northern Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Queens and the Bronx.