England have done their country proud at the 2026 World Cup – but the same cannot be said for everyone.
Only three teams remain in the competition and the Three Lions are one of them.
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They face Argentina on Wednesday night for the chance to take on Spain in Sunday’s final, both live on eSPORTY.
Ultimately, this summer’s edition of the tournament delivered the last four most fans expected: France, Spain, England and Argentina.
But there were some surprises along the way.
Cape Verde got a better result against Spain than France did, escaped from a group which also contained Uruguay, and took Argentina to extra-time in the knockout stages.
Norway were another surprise package as they dumped out Brazil and reached the quarter-finals, inspired by seven Erling Haaland goals.
But the Manchester City striker has been called out for going missing when it really mattered against England.
eSPORTY’s chief football anchor Adrian Durham has ranked the top five biggest flops of the World Cup so far, with no mercy shown towards Haaland or Scotland…
5: Erling Haaland vs England
Durham said: “He was so bad he was taken off with Norway desperate for a goal.
“He was also guilty of a needless two-handed push in the chest of Elliot Anderson to rule out a Norway goal.
“And then his dad running wild on social media kind of killed the ‘aren’t Norway fans great’ narrative.”
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4: African nations
Durham said: “Only Morocco made it to the quarter-finals and even then they didn’t score as they went out rather tamely to France with an xG in that game of 0.14.
“In recent years, Morocco, Senegal and Egypt have all had world class talent to build their teams around.
“Yet the biggest African success at this World Cup was Cape Verde, who captured our hearts without even winning a game.”
3: Neymar
Durham said: “What was the point?
“Scored a consolation penalty and then barged into Martin Odegaard like he was some sort of saviour of Brazil’s football reputation.
“Meanwhile, Joao Pedro was on a beach somewhere.”
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2: Scotland
Durham said: “Only winning 1-0 against Haiti, a game they were fortunate to win.
“And losing 3-0 to a Brazil side that really ended up being nowhere near as good as their reputation suggested they might be.
“Look, we knew Scotland didn’t have a keeper who actually plays the game regularly, and we knew their defence would be a shambles.
“So they needed goals, therefore the failure all goes back to leaving Oli McBurnie at home when he’d had the best season of his career.
“Steve Clarke wasted the opportunity of a lifetime. But at least the fans tidied up after themselves in Boston.
“They don’t even do that after a night out in Glasgow.”
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1: Uruguay
Durham said: “They were even worse than Scotland.
“Marcelo Bielsa is a legend at Leeds, there are still murals of him around the city. He worked wonders at the club.
“But as Uruguay manager he had an absolute shocker.
“Bielsa held a two hour press conference after the final game, the highlight of which was him desperate to point out that his players had run 20-30 per cent more than their opponents in the group stage.
“There is nothing more Bielsa than quoting hard running stats as a positive after abject failure.
“Maybe FIFA will introduce a spot for qualifying to the knockout stage for the hardest runners at some point in the future.”
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