The day of two days

In 2006, after we lost to Portugal on penalties in the quarter final, I wrote this.

It’s just vicious, really. Like free range calves, they get to run around the field for a few weeks, but then out come the chainsaws. Discounting the third place playoff, a poor apology for a wooden spoon game which is now beyond our wildest dreams, all the last fifteen games exist entirely for the purpose of inflicting the dreary ennui of defeat on one nation after another.

Children cry themselves to sleep, grown men hide under blankets all day, flags droop sadly on the bonnets of cars. Everywhere around the world. Including qualification, every country in the entire world except one goes through this every four years, every two years if you count the continental cups.

At least England - finally - managed to give us some halfway decent football. With their backs to the wall, they played with the fighting spirit of Douglas Bader and the soaring leap of a gazelle, as opposed to the other way round like they had been doing.

This time it's easier. Firstly, elimination was spread over two days, the day when we lost to Suarez, then the next day when Costa Rica's victory over Italy finally removed the last mathematical chance. This might sound worse, in the same way that extended nuclear halflives sound worse, but experts will tell you that actually short sharp bursts are the very worst, in sports grief as in radioactive decay.

Also, it's happened so much earlier than usual. This time we're the fourth team to be eliminated. In order, it's been Cameroon, Australia, Spain, England, making the four of us into a very sad CASE. In 2006 we lost to Portugal (again), in the quarter final (again), in a penalty shoot out (yet again), and it felt like we'd blown another real chance to achieve something. This year we didn't have time to start building false hopes, which is a lot kinder in the long run. It's an insight into what it must be like being Welsh.

The third difference is that normally when we get knocked out, the disappointment combines with an awareness that it's nearly the end of the World Cup. This year there's still loads of it left, and Messi has just scored his injury time winner against Iran as I edit this. So really, not a bad year at all.

Looking ahead, these are my predictions for the quarter finals

France to beat Germany

Italy to beat Brazil

Belgium to beat Argentina

Holland to beat Costa Rica

So do feel free to take the piss when Greece face up against the Ivory Coast in the final.