So that’s definitely it then – England are out. The Italians refused to do us a small favour in despatching those giants of World Cup football Costa Rica – and our boys are on the first available flight home after they’ve had a consolatory crack at Costa Rica themselves.
And what happened in the Italy-Costa Rica game by the way? The Italian side that so cynically put away England with a professionalism that typified the way they have always played the beautiful game looked like they’d all taken a couple of tablets of Nytol before they walked on the pitch.
It seemed like they just weren’t interested – or was it the Costa Ricans’ determination to close everything down so quickly that made the Italians look like they’d been drugged?
Anyway, whatever happened, it’s over for England and that month-long summer of festive World Cup fun we were all anticipating turned out to be a week’s worth only. So now what do we do?
Well obviously you need to pick a team to follow to see you through the next phase of the competition and to try and get behind. This may be influenced by the club you support. Chelsea fans may be rooting for Brazil with Ramires and Oscar in the line-up, whilst the Gunners fans may be hoping Olivier Giroud and his French team continue their fine run all the way to the final.
There are plenty Premier League players to choose from, of course, but it’s nowhere near the same thing. All England fans can look forward to is a decent run at the Euro 2016 competition in two years’ time. But who will be at the helm then? Will “Woy” survive to fight another day (as he deserves to) or will it be a new man at the helm like fans’ favourite Harry Redknapp?
Only time will tell and Roy Hodgson’s fortunes may well be influenced by England’s performance in their final World Cup 2014 game against Costa Rica. But you can only work with the players you have.
Until Euro 2016 (which will be held in France by the way, so not too far to travel this time) we have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. One fun way is by playing slots on your tablet or mobile while you’re travelling in particular. And if you choose to play online slots at 32Red, there’s a “Football Star!” game you can play which may provide a little consolation for England fans. It’s a 5 x 3 reel, 243-way video slot based on football with shots, goals, penalties, the works. It’s a good fun game to play if you have to kill a little time on a journey; back from Brazil perhaps? Perhaps even more appropriately, you could play World Cup Mania, another slot with 5 reels and 15 paylines that features on the site.
Of course, 32red isn’t the only site to have World Cup themed games and promotions on at the moment. Almost every gaming site has some kind of link to the football. At Winner Bingo, for example, there’s the Football Frenzy promo, where you can play daily games with £1,000 in prizes for just 1p at a time, and at bet365bingo, there’s a chance to win a trip to Rio as you’ll be entered into a prize draw with every £5 bingo purchase.
It may not be quite the same supporting another country’s team during the knockout stages of the World Cup, but with all the different World Cup promos and games around, you may as well enjoy staying in the spirit of it all until the final on 13th July.