With England to play Slovenia in a Group C match on Wednesday at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth, a more telling fact is that it's been 50 years — 1958 in Sweden — that the English have failed to advance past the first round once they've made it to the finals.
Yet that scenario is facing coach Fabio Capello and his apparently discordant English players — a loss to Slovenia would end any chance of England making it to the round of 16. England has two points after a 1-1 draw with the United States and a scoreless stalemate with Algeria.
Thousands of unsold seats await England
England manager Fabio Capello could face leading his team out to a stadium of empty seats following dismal performances from the national squad.
The team will line up against Slovenia at the 48,000 seat Nelson Mandela stadium in Port Elizabeth in a must win fixture following a lacklustre start to the tournament.
England supporters booed the players off the pitch following Friday’s 0 – 0 result against Algeria – a team ranked 30th in the world, 22 places below England.
England WAGs criticised over 'disgusting' £9,000 goody bag
Details of the party have emerged just days after Emile Heskey's fiancé, Miss Tagoe visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Cape Town.
Both Miss Tagoe and Matthew Upson's girlfriend Miss Darby also appeared in a BBC 3 documentary which saw them visit some of South Africa's poorest neighbourhoods to care for children infected by HIV.
An anti-poverty charity who work with some of South Africa's poorest people has labelled the free gifts as "disgusting".
I’m tired of these fake apologies from everyone. It seems that people think they can say or do anything and then all they have to do is apologize and everything will be alright again. That don’t work in my book.