After a slow start in the World Cup, England turned the heat on Argentina where Beckham atoned for his 1998 sins by scoring a winning goal from the penalty spot. The England bandwagon continued with a 3-0 drubbing of Denmark until the quarterfinal match against the eventual Cup winners, Brazil, when the cheering stopped.

Owen had given everyone high hopes with his usual textbook goal in which he took advantage of poor defending by Brazil. But two subsequent goals by Brazil were enough to take them further in the Cup. You could say these were caused by England's mistakes. Beckham had hurdled two Brazilian defenders on the touchline only to see them keep the ball in play, send it up-field for Rivaldo to score a demoralizing equalizer just before halftime. In the second goal, Seaman was certainly off his line, but you could argue that the goal was also due to the freaky baseball-like flight of the ball they used in the World Cup. The most puzzling thing was that England didn't seem to know how to take the advantage when Brazil were later reduced to ten men. Was this due to lack of leadership by the captain? Was it the coach's fault? But lose they did. And the flags stopped flying in England. But a very young team must have high hopes for the European championship in 2004.

Ireland were very unlucky not to go through in losing to Spain. Shay Given played a blinder in goal, but Ireland had obviously not practiced their penalty kicks for a possible shoot-out. (Contrast that with the unerring display from the spot by South Korea against Spain).

The USA team deserves every credit too, despite comments in the UK papers about their "lack of technical refinement" and "inelegance." Americans have an insatiable passion to win. They were all over Germany in the quarterfinal and fully deserved an equalizing goal. They almost had it with one minute of injury time left, when a header from a right cross just went wide. If that had been Big Al or Sol Campbell the ball would have been in the back of the net. The most discouraging thing about the US loss was that very few people in America know what the World Cup is, let alone that their team had come so close to getting into the semi-finals.

The most encouraging result of this year's World Cup was the performance of teams like Senegal (as well as all the teams from Africa) and South Korea. Some of the usually dominant European sides were sent packing before the second round. It's good for the sport on a worldwide basis to have these new competitors.

For those of us in North America it meant watching the matches live at 2:30 in the morning and sometimes again at 7:30 in the morning for another match. The English-language TV channels were ESPN/ESPN2/ABC and, if you wanted a sharper image, Univision, although the commentary was in Spanish.

With disappointing inevitability, it's "wait until next time" - but at least the Toon was well represented by Kieron Dyer, Shay Given, Andy O'Brien, and Diego Gavilan.