Qn: What has Tevez been able to do that Rooney hasn't?

Answer: Play for his country as well as he can for his club, even after a premier league season.

Dr Andrew Murray, a research fellow at Cambridge University's department of physiology, development and neuroscience, told BBC's Today programme: "The problem with the theory it was a long season that struck down the players is that Tevez seems to be playing with the same vigour, enthusiasm and skill he normally does at club level."

Capello prepared the players with a month's altitude training “because by adapting to the altitude, you increase the number of red blood cells and increase the oxygen-carrying capacity in the rarefied air.” But “this could make the blood sludgier and make it harder to move around the body, so may not be beneficial when they come down to sea level. Also somewhat paradoxically, altitude training affects the muscles' ability to use the red blood cells, so this could be perceived as tiredness by the players."

Not forgetting that the USA premier league players, who just flew in a few days before the tournament, without altitude adjustment, zipped around the pitch.

But I bet if England had not tried to acclimatise to the altitude another topflight physio would have criticised that.

So overall a classic example of trying to do right but only making things worse. On top of which there's all the hype and expectation – the pressure of having to do well - that imprisons the mind in actions of failure, the student 'exam nerves syndrome'.

But what of our attitudes? What does all this say to us whose desires and dreams and hopes for meaning are so deeply invested in the glory of the transient. What does it ultimately mean if England win the world cup? Will such a victory save your marriage, deliver you from your addictions, and raise you from your grave? Winning the world cup is marvellous, as a worldly event but it has no eternal significance – why, FIFA have even decided that the winners must qualify alongside all the losers for the next tournament.

May England always win but do not love the world or anything in the world, for the world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives for ever.