England 1 Germany 4: Fans react to dismal defeat

Capello singled out Lampard's 'goal' as a turning point in the match (Photo: P Blank)

England’s 2010 World Cup hopes were emphatically ended on Sunday afternoon as Germany hammered Fabio Capello’s side 4-1.

After falling 2-0 behind in the first half to goals from Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, Matthew Upson’s controlled header reduced the deficit to one.

And moments before the break, Frank Lampard’s legitimate long-range strike was not awarded despite the Chelsea midfielder’s shot rebounding off the crossbar and bouncing at least one yard behind the goal-line.

“Instead of tweeting where he’s had lunch and who with, will @SeppBlatter actually tell us why human error is acceptable at the World Cup in 2010?”

A second-half brace from Thomas Muller then sealed the victory for Joachim Löw’s side.

The result marks England’s worst ever defeat at a World Cup and has prompted a plethora of different reactions on micro-blogging website, Twitter.

“England were awful and deserved to lose though I’m still gutted! Can’t help but feel there was major potential wasted,” said Phoenixvolta.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who has continuously stated his intention not to introduce goal-line technology into the game, did not comment via his own Twitter account following Lampard’s disallowed goal.

“Instead of tweeting where he’s had lunch and who with, will @SeppBlatter actually tell us why human error is acceptable at the World Cup in 2010?” Nick Baker.

“This is not a Fabio Capello team,” said The Times‘ Oliver Kay. “If you’ve managed title-winning teams in Italy and Spain, this can’t be easy to watch.”

The Italian manager himself singled out Lampard’s ‘goal’ as a turning point in the match.

“It was one of the most important things in the game,” said Capello. “The goal was very important. We could have played a different style.

“We played I think well at 2-1, but after the third goal it was a little bit disappointing.

“We played well. Germany is a big team. They played a good game. We made some mistakes when they played the counter-attack. The referee made bigger mistakes.

“Little things decide the result always.”