Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

I don't believe it, to coin a phrase. Every time I think it can't get any worse, but it does. We can't say we weren't forewarned... Rooney's metatarsal, Owen's cruciate, disproportionate yellow cards to Terry, Robinson and Carragher - giving the likelihood of another Gazza moment, the distraction to a key player knowing he will miss the next game. In fact, deep down, we already felt we'd read the script. And then Saturday comes.

My earliest international football memory is the 1970 World Cup. Those who write that the excitement of 2006 has been greater are talking complete tosh. Back then the country was gripped by "football fever", of an intensity not repeated in the daft competition of 1982, the worst World Cup ever, the cheat of 1986 ("Messi is the new Maradona", they say, as if we need another fat, drug-taking cheat), the tragedies of 1990 and 1998 nor the defeat by Ronaldhino in 2002. Moore, Charlton, the peerless Banks and the rest were destined to duel with Brazil like gods on the Elysian Fields. That's when it started. That sick feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Watching the old footage of Bank's save from Pele in 1970 - as kids we believed Banks had performed a back-somersault and thought Pele must possess some secret ability to hang in the air - it's hard to believe that that first match was as good as it's ever been. We lost 1-0, but no matter, there was the Final to come. But it never happened. Is that all I get?

The signs were there back then: Moore's arrest, the noise outside the team hotel before the Brazil game, the heat. We thought we could just shrug these factors off. We'd just play better football. Then came Bank's bad bottle of beer and Bonetti's nightmare, Ramsey's substitution to keep Charlton fresh...

Let's be perfectly clear, since then there's only been one clear-cut knock-out defeat in the Finals! And it was on the Elysian Fields against the Brazilians. And even then the afternoon heat was a factor. The 2002 Quarter-Final was really lost when we failed to win the group. Or maybe it was the tackle on Beckham (probably a straight red had it been in this World Cup) weeks before, or perhaps the Gerrard or Neville injuries.

And again, so close: if only we'd managed to get past Portugal and reach the cool evening games of the Semi and the Final!

And external factors and pure luck have - incredibly - played an even greater part. Those, like Terry Butcher, who claim we are just not good enough are too quick to condemn. Sure, if England had really turned it on, they might have won easily and the Rooney incident might never have happened. But let's remember: there are two teams on the pitch! And you don't win these competitions by peaking in the early stages: ask Argentina and Spain. The fact that England didn't play like Chelsea at their best against Sunderland on a bad day doesn't mean they deserved to lose. There are only prizes for winning games, not for extravagant football. If England had won on Saturday, we'd still be expecting to win this thing. And imagine what the mood there would have been in the country this week! That's what makes me feel sick about it. We have too little to celebrate in this country. Even the sun that shone as we won the right to host the 2012 Olympics was lost to a dark cloud four screwed up little f***ers thought they had a right to conjure up.

Back to Saturday. Let's look at the facts. Why didn't we win?

Martin O'Neill (BBC punditry) is right: England would have won had Rooney stayed on the field. And he was the victim of one of the worst pieces of refereeing in this or any other World Cup. The "experts" (the BBC panel) have been far too quick to rework the old narrative. Rob Smyth (who he?) is even conscious that he is looking at the present through the past: "Rooney has been giving an increasingly disquieting homage to the 1991 Paul Gascoigne". Smyth is privy to some special knowledge. He is certain that Rooney "stamped on Ricardo Carvalho deliberately and recklessly". He asks what Ronaldo supposed to do? Let the referee make a decision, that's what. Until we get away from the myth of an omniscient man in black we won't have anything like objectivity, but let's at least try. Any unsolicited approach to the referee should be carded immediately.

If the curse of 1966 is to be dispelled we have to look at what's happening with new eyes. What really happened? Rooney's view would be useful, but let's have a look at the video evidence.

[I've just heard on the radio that Frings has a one-match ban for fighting - don't want a German to miss the final do we? - Rooney is facing at least two + the punishment he's already had!].

Lamps plays the ball accurately onto Rooney's chest. He has to hold it up. Gerrard is running on. It's already clear that moments like this can win the game. Just as against Ecuador, Rooney has conserved his energy in the first half and is starting to try to seal the game. The situation is not without danger for the Portuguese (I happened to record Match of the Day so I have been able to review this). If Rooney emerges with the ball, Carvalho is out of position, Petit is also behind the play and the defence are exposed to a break by Gerrard and Rooney, two of the most dangerous players in world football. And the speedy Lennon is to Rooney's right as well.

That's why, as Rooney received the ball, Carvalho goes through the back of him. Had Rooney collapsed like he'd been shot - the Portuguese way - a yellow card would have been likely from an unbiassed referee. But our man Elizondo doesn't whistle or wave play on. No foul. Complete incompetence. Or...?

But Rooney just wants to play football. As he foxes Petit (who starts appealing for no apparent reason) and tussles with Carvalho - both are fouling at one point: Carvalho, blatantly, has our boy's shirt and Rooney is pushing Carvalho away, grabbing his shorts and thigh - the stakes are high. The Portuguese would be quite happy to give away a free-kick (itself symptomatic of the sport's problems). Carvalho goes to ground behind Rooney, and instead of rolling away or getting up he carries on (likely illegally) attempting to tackle and/or bring our man down. Back in the 1970s or 1980s, I recollect, players going to ground became a problem and the refereeing initiative at one World Cup was to try to outlaw the behaviour altogether. I guess we've forgotten. Carvalho had no business being where he was. Rooney couldn't see what was going on behind him. No wonder there was an accident.

Eventually the referee blows. As he does, Rooney appears to stand on Carvalho's privates. The Portuguese is apparently in agony. Rooney raises his arm: "Sorry, mate!". If this had been a Sunday league game, Carvalho would accept the apology, the rest of us would be a bit concerned or have a laugh and get on with the game. We'd remember it, and there'd be retribution if one player stepped on too many others. But this competition doesn't even have the ethics of pub team rivalry. Portuguese players protest and demand punishment. The referee can't think straight, maybe he even gives in to his own preconceptions of English players. We know what happened next.

The key moment of England's World Cup. Hundreds of millions of pounds spent, tens of millions of hours dedicated to the event just that afternoon, many billions more over the previous weeks and months. And for this?

Elizondo, an Argentinian known not to give England celebrity footballers the benefit of the doubt (remember David Beckham in the World Club Championship) is, according to Sven, "100% sure it was a red card". This is absurd. Only Rooney knows whether there was intent, and if there wasn't it was an accident. This is the same game, remember, where Nuno Valente pushed over Beckham - another potential match-winner - and then trod on the back of his ankle. Achilles injury: 6 weeks out. And just as likely to have been accidental as Carvalho's squashed testicles.

We have the benefit of albeit piss-poor German TV pictures, from just one angle, except for one close up sequence shown on BBC. Look closely at what Rooney is trying to do at the crucial moment. His weight is all on his right leg, he's nearly bent double, and the ball is loose. He needs to stay on his feet and go after it. You try it: you want to straighten up and start running. So Rooney puts his left foot back to push off. Does he have eyes in the back of his head? No. his eyes are on the ball and it's unclear whether he knows exactly where Carvalho is, much less what bit of him is where. Is he starting to think where this ball is going? Yes. Should Carvalho be where he is? No. So Rooney's foot attempt to find somewhere to put his foot encounters the inside of Carvalho's knee and slides up to his groin area. Ouch! This, my friends, was an accident. If anything, Carvalho was reckless. Any free kick should have gone to England.

FIFA will no doubt ban the boy Rooney for several games: they need to try to preserve the myth that some godlike man in black, can judge in an instant, under enormous pressure, with partisan suggestions interrupting his confused thoughts - can judge not just who did what, but why as well.

Let's look at it another way. Had the red mist descended? No. Rooney was just trying to play football. Why be annoyed with Ronaldo? This was the reaction of someone thinking: I didn't do anything and these guys, including my supposed "friend", are trying to get me sent off. And if anyone out there's uncertain, the shove on Ronaldo was not a sending-off offence (according to Eriksson, the referee said the punishment was for stamping). It was ignored by the ref: it wasn't even the worst shove that happened in that melee. The fact that some sources (Google them yourself) think Rooney was sent off for the shove, suggests real doubt rather than the referee's "100%" certainty about the original "offence". And we have the benefit of replays. As Lawro said on the Beeb: "The only thing he can be sent off for is a stamp" (recollected, may not be verbatim). If Rooney had really stamped on Carvalho, he would have been angry already. He'd then be wondering what he'd done, and trying to limit the damage, not shoving someone. He reacted with disbelief rather than acceptance when the card was brandished. This was just a boy trying to play football. And the game is the worse every time a player is punished for doing that and another rewarded for trying to win the game another way.

And let's try looking at it another way. If Rooney HAD stamped on the Carvalho cojones, it would be indefensible. Yet Gerrard and Lampard are defending him strongly. With the wisdom of crowds, the jury of the British public is not reacting as they did to Beckham in 1998 (because he WAS stupid, immature and petulant, though, like Alan Hansen, I still think his sending off was "harsh"). They're not convinced this time, whatever Rob Smyth might say. Instead, Ronaldo is the focus of our anger and bitter disappointment. A wink shows he has chosen the wrong father figure and that Scolari is the real villain of the piece. It's hard to believe getting Rooney off the pitch was not part of the Portuguese game-plan (those who still don't believe how good he is should go and see him play live and watch no-one else). But the stupid boy Ronaldo has not only counted his Real Madrid chickens, he's slaughtered and eaten them as well, and then pulled the wishbone with that nauseating pre-penalty kiss of the ball. The best thing Ferguson could do for football is loan him to Preston instead. Then we'd see what his fellow professionals think of him.

I accept the Carvalho castration incident looked bad, and Rooney hasn't made a statement himself yet, so I may be forced to eat my words, but for me more acid has been thrown in the face of the "beautiful game". Sepp Blatter, I think it was, said that, in this World Cup, the skilful players would be allowed to play. He has no idea how to make this happen. The game will carry on plummeting downhill until FIFA ditches its antiquated system of controlling games with its random (or worse) and disproportionate enforcement of the rules, starts punishing cheating, provocation and deception consistently and stops pretending retaliation and reckless tackling are its most serious problems. Maybe they'll suddenly wake up and find we've all discovered something better to do with our time, money and emotional energy. If they don't look out, there could be something akin to a revolution. The moment of greatest domination of the empire of football - at least as presided over by the FIFA dynasty - could be its moment of greatest weakness.

PS There's sanity out there (and also some useful footage) if you look for it...