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Football and the rising sun simply don't mix, says Al Needham. The 2002 World Cup was all well and good, but it should never be allowed to take place at that time of the morning again

Once upon a time, the World Cup was like a dog. A big, fluffy, waggy-tailed dog who would wait for us to come pegging it out of the school gates. It would wait patiently for us. We would make time for it. All our friends loved it, and would talk about it incessantly. It was heartbreaking when the dog went away, but we knew it would be back another day, wagging its tail and licking our faces.

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France's previous triumphs have shielded both players and coach from too much derision after their embarassing exit, says Neil McCarthy

It is worth underlining just how bad France were. Reigning World Cup champions have frequently dis­appointed, but never to this extent. Despite boasting the leading strikers of the French, Eng­lish and Italian leagues, they didn’t even score a single goal. It was the worst performance of a World Cup holder, surpassing the 1962 winners Brazil, who at least managed to score goals and win one of three matches in 1966.

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David O'Byrne saw the Turkey outdo all World Cup expectations despite Hakan Sukur's baleful influence

Before the start of the World Cup, few Turks had ex­pec­ted their team to last as far as the semi-finals. After the first two group matches, that number had shrunk con­siderably. As a scenario of failure, relinquishing a one-goal lead not once but twice had a distinctly familiar ring. A decade of senselessly chucking away pro­m­ising positions was capped last November when Turkey gifted Sweden two goals in the last three min­utes of the final qualifying match, leaving them to face a play-off against Austria.

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The World Cup produced some truly awful TV. Cameron Carter relives the BBC's late-night shocker, while Barney Ronay laments the humiliation of Paul Gascoigne

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I admit it doesn’t take too much to appear the clever one in a broadcasting partnership with Denise van Outen or Kelly Brook, but Johnny Vaughan has been funny and will be funny again (like our plucky England team, he’s relatively young). It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to find people who still believe this. Like his recent sitcom ’Orrible, Johhny Vaughan’s World Cup Extra provided fewer moments of pleasure than a motivational talk from a reformed crack addict.

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Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger explains why Rudi Völler's battlers were different from their predecessors, and how they made him care about the national side again

Sometime around a quarter to three on Friday, June 21, I caught myself slowly and silently rocking back and forth. Even my son, a nervous chatterbox less than two hours earlier, was very quiet. He is only 12, and at that age it’s not only normal to support your national team but perhaps even, well, healthy. So I kept my mouth shut because there was nothing positive to say and I didn’t want to foster a cynical image by saying something negative. All the more so since there were plenty of other people already doing that.

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