The Three Lions are landing back on their home turf today and before they even deplane, the English media will be on them like hounds. Their defeated faces will be splashed across the tabloids with horribly corny puns similar to the one shown in Nike’s ‘Write the Future Ad’.

And the whole country is going to be grilling Capello, the players, FIFA, the location, and even the way the EPL is run. Right now, as I type this, England’s (least) favourite Italian is being questioned with more intensity than the Spanish Inquisition.  No surprise. England is going to look for a single scapegoat to bear their string of poor performances and German slaughter. We saw hints of this when Capello swiftly shut down John Terry’s all-team meeting and the English media immediately pounced on Terry in attempts of making him a backup scapegoat—just in case the English lost.

England, I ask you, why can there only be one reason why you failed to revive 1966? Because, really, aren’t a combination of all of the above named factors a reason why you lost?

Capello’s not perfect, that’s a fact. But no one is. Not even Maradona. Sure, he spent too much time trying to find the right starting XI, made some tactical errors, refused to pull out underperforming superstars like Rooney and barely acknowledged the team’s request for Joe Cole to play. But that’s his style. Capello does things his way and while critics may say that he should’ve adopted the less-harsh English method, it probably would have lead to a quicker downfall and probably not a qualifier.

The players are always the hardest and the easiest to blame. The so-called Golden Generation of footballers were supposed to pave the way to a victory that only dreams could concoct. But everybody underperformed. Nobody seemed to have the heart to play. Nobody seemed to want it after Robert Green’s howler. The whole team scored a total of 3 goals. Lampard had arguably the best game of any of the players, but even then, his semi-lackluster performance didn’t debut until the threat of elimination was made very real. Speaking of…

USA fans will forever lament the two discounted goals, but they won’t moan about it nearly as much as England will Lampard’s. The call to FIFA for the inclusion of instant replay and better refereeing will be louder from the British Isles than anywhere else. (Except maybe a jilted Mexico). And with FIFA staying mum on their ref’s performances, it’s not going to make matters any better. To be fair, this is probably England’s best argument for their loss, as an equaliser would have drastically altered the momentum of the second half and prevented such a blitzkrieg.

The environment is always one of the first to be blamed for poor performances: altitude change, a wintertime World Cup, poor pitch conditions, vuvuzelas, etc. I’m surprised the team hasn’t lashed out at the Jabulani ball yet…oh, wait.

The most outrageous argument that has come up thus far has been against the number of foreign players that are allowed to play in the EPL. English players are apparently not getting enough playing time and feel suffocated by the number of foreigners in the clubs. Okay.

When it comes down to it, England have only themselves to blame. Maybe Capello’s no WAGs rule had something to do with it…

Pepsi has unveiled one of their new TV adverts for the 2010 World Cup which star Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Andrei Arshavin and Kaka.

Sit back and enjoy the video.

Most of the heavy favourites have already qualified for the World Cup due next summer in South Africa. Previous World Cup winners such as Brazil, Germany, England, Argentina and Italy (also current WC Winners) all booked their spot in South Africa following a long and arduous road. Some teams such as Argentina have struggled while others such as England have cruised, yet the World Cup stage is a different playing field and previous results will not count. The only two teams with an outside chance that have yet to qualify are France and Portugal while the Spaniards have impressed in their group following their 2008 triumph in Europe.

Spain cannot be overlooked due to its rich talent, in particular the likes of David Villa, Xavi Herndandez and Fernando Torres among others. Other than Spain, the English national team under Italian Coach Fabio Capello had an impressive tally of points after convincingly navigating the qualifying group stage. Capello can count on the likes of Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, and Steven Gerrard to carry England all the way into the final stages.

The Brazilians and the Germans as well as the Italians often perform their best when it matters most. Brazil has a plethora of talent beginning with current Real Madrid star Kaka and stretching to right-back Maicon who plays for Inter Milan. The Italians are current World Cup holders so there will be additional pressure on the Azzurri to perform following  a relatively uninspiring qualifying campaign. It will be wrong to undermine Italy’s chances when considering that Gianluigi Buffon is recapturing his best form which had him labeled as the best custodian in the world while Daniele De Rossi remains a considerable driving force in the midfield engine room.

While Argentina had a horrendous sequence of results before securing qualification  in the very last match, it is not wise to exclude the Argentines from the list of potential winners though Diego Maradona as a coach has shown over and again that he not only lacks the know-how but also is clueless when it comes to strategies, team selection and tactics. After all, Argentina still has Lionel Messi though he continues to underperform when compared to his exploits with Barcelona.

Will one of the traditional powers (i.e. Brazil, Germany or Italy) or will an emerging nation (Spain and England) or a new rising team (Ivory Coast) triumph in South Africa? For the record no European team has ever won outside Europe and the trend could very well continue if Brazil performs up to expectations or perhaps a surprising African package rises to the occasions just as the South Koreans did in Asia 2002 when they made it to the semi-finals.