July 03, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 6, 1427

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LONDON, July 2: Britain's media plunged into deep mourning after England were knocked out of the World Cup in a penalty shootout by Portugal on Saturday.

Wayne Rooney was back on all the front pages with most of Sunday's newspapers carrying photos of the striker being sent off in the fateful 62nd minute.

‘End of the World’, blared the Sunday Express, adding ‘England crack up and go out on penalties’.

The Observer, on its front page, declared: ‘The End: England pay the penalty after Rooney sees red.’

The News of the World devoted its first seven pages to the defeat under the headline ‘Tears and a Clown’.

The editorial on page eight praised the players for fighting like lions and bemoaned the leadership off the pitch instead, saying: “For five years the FA have allowed Sven-Goran Eriksson to blunder from one disaster to another”.

‘Rooney sees red and then England crumble,’ said The Sunday Times front page which began with the words: “Oh no, not again.”

The Sunday Express managed to link Rooney's sending off by Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo to Maradona's Hand of God goal and David Beckham's sending off at France '98.

The paper lumped them together in what it described as “bad refereeing decisions -- all involving Argentinians”.

But The Observer, awarding Rooney only three marks out of 10 for his overall performance, said Elizondo had no choice other than to send the striker off if he had seen Rooney dig his boot into the ‘nether region’ of opponent Ricardo Carvalho.

While English newspapers differed on the merits of Rooney’s ejection, they seemed united in their negative assessment of Eriksson.

Joe Lovejoy, writing in The Sunday Times, argued the tournament was better without England.

“It will go down as the year they had two World Cups — one illuminated by disciples of the Beautiful Game, the other played by England,” he wrote.

“When Sven-Goran Eriksson and his long-ball sect were eliminated on penalties by Portugal last night, it ended the embarrassment it has been to be an Englishman in Germany this past month.”

Added Gary Lineker, former England star and current TV pundit, in The Sunday Telegraph: “This is a golden generation of English talent but in terms of picking the right squad and getting the right balance of the team, Eriksson ultimately got it wrong. It is as simple as this: Eriksson never gave them a chance.”

The Observer also lamented what might have been.

“With England's World Cup hopes cruelly jettisoned, despite their spirited last-ditch stand at the Gelsenkirchen stadium, it’s goodbye to Sven-Goran Eriksson, goodbye to the Wags (the England team's wives and girlfriends) and, in all probability, goodbye to what was England's best hope of World Cup glory for a generation.”

The Sunday Telegraph looked at the bottom line of the Eriksson reign.

“It cost the Football Association about 27 million pounds, or 100,000 a week, in wages for Eriksson and his principal assistant, Tord Grip, to reach a couple of World Cup quarter-finals.”

Opinions were split on Rooney’s actions, however.

Tottenham manager Martin Jol, in a column for The Sunday Times, disputed the striker’s red card.

“It wasn’t even a booking,” he wrote. “When Rooney trampled on Ricardo Carvalho, he didn't do it on purpose.

“Before that he was being impeded and should have had a foul anyway. The referee blew his whistle and paused and was thinking of what to do when (Portugal’s Cristiano) Ronaldo ran over and asked him to show a card. It’s how Ronaldo always behaves, trying to influence referees, and it turns my stomach when players do that.”

Sir Geoff Hurst, hero of England's 1966 World Cup win, told The Sun he though Rooney had failed to deal with the pressure of the match.

“Rooney’s red card was the turning point — it changed the flow of the game. We never looked in any danger but he's been found out in the big game. It's a huge disappointment as we could have gone much further.”

Former England manager Terry Venables also pointed at Rooney.

“To me it was a red card no question,” he said in a column for The News of the World. “Let’s be honest — he stamped on Ricardo Carvalho where it really hurts, right in the groin. It was foolish. It was a moment of madness and it again underlined the fragility of Rooney’s temperament.

“I have to say that hot-headed streak, that explosive loss of discipline is something which could threaten his abilities to become one of the world’s great players.”—Agencies