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Can't Say I'm Too Disappointed

Paul Trail takes in England's final game of World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

We arrived in Belo Horizonte early Monday following a 12 hour overnight bus journey from Angres and spent the day exploring the city which certainly has its charm. The people are ever so friendly and helpful. If they can't speak English – they try to help. If they can speak English, they'll do whatever they can to help. It's as if it's a chore for them not to help you. Brazilians really are the nicest people.

I was gutted when my camera broke and I entered an IT repair shop to try my luck. In my pathetic pigeon English, I showed them the fault and they disappeared into the back of the shop with the camera for five minutes. When they returned they'd fixed it and would not accept any payment from me at all.

It's a bit like that here and it was a joy to celebrate their victory over Cameroon to set up a mouthwatering clash with Chile. I'm desperarely trying to scramble tickets for that one. We drunk and danced the night away... well they can dance. They widely mocked my efforts.

Onto match day and with the 1pm kick off we made our way early to the Estadio Mineirao. We were heading to a bus stop when we encountered quite the wacky funster sporting dyed-red hair complete with mullet, St George's cross facepaint, an England flag draped around his neck and (the real double-take moment) a St George's flag contact lens. Anyhow, we boarded this bus instead and it slowly took us to the stadium.

Once there it was of course busy even with 2½ hours until kick off. We sat outside a small bar in the beautiful sunshine drinking cold beer in what was as good a location as possible for people-watching. Hoardes of England and Costa Rican fans (amongst others) marched up the hill all brimming with excitement. Some Costa Rica supporters taunting England with chants of "Bye Bye England", this enough to set the England fans congregated in the bar next to us into a frenzy and the songs and 'banter' began.

Now I'm not much of a Nationalist I readily admit. It's Everton over country for me. No doubt about it, so I really struggle to embrace the "Ing-er-land Till I Die" chants and so on. It's all a bit pathetic in my opinion. Most England fans out here have been great. A really good bunch but there's always a few to spoil it and the frenzied-fans in the bar next door did just that for my German girlfriend and I with chants of "Ten German Bombers In The Air". That's not nice. That's not necessary and insulted, on we moved into the stadium.

It was just as well we left when did, however, as the process of getting into the Mineirao is lengthy. Once inside it was fabulous. Luckily we were with largely Brazilian supporters and not with the zany 'Knights of the Realm' outfits etc, our view decent and the stadium excellent.

The World Cup anthem always brings a smile to my face, as do national anthems, though not so much England's. I'm not a great nationalist so can't get carried away with it and so didn't as it boomed around the stadium. The teams lined up, nice to see Ross Barkley representing Everton, Baines and Jagielka only on the bench though neither have exactly covered themselves in glory this World Cup if truth be told. "I hope England win so long as I don't have to see Sturridge's stupid dance," I told Katja as the game kicked off.

With England already eliminated and Costa Rica already group winners (who saw that one coming, by the way?), the game was pretty meaningless and it did have that friendly feel to it. Costa Rica created the first opening with Campbell lofting one just wide of the post via a deflection. It seemed Sturridge heard of my concerns as he proceeded to miss three great chances in the game (one following great initial work by Barkley, a Milner cross and then a Barkley knock-down) and a couple of half-chances to boot. I hope he can keep up that form in next seasons campaign. Sadly there is little else to report in the game.

Barkley was excellent in flashes though vacant for chunks though we know that can happen with Ross anyway. Wilshere was excellent. Quite how "Hendo" was preferred to he this World Cup, I don't know... but otherwise it was poor really. From what I understand, Hodgson is getting hammered back home but, with what he has available, I can't really see what he could have done differently. Are the young players really any better? Are they really good enough? No, not in my opinion. Not based on this performance anyway.

There was time for a few cameos before full time. I grimaced at the support afforded for Steven Gerrard when he was introduced... though chuckled when the applause for Rooney dwarfed that... Rooney did come close with a trademark lob but that was pretty much it. England going home... but we knew that anyway.

We waited around a while at full-time to let the crowd disperse and then went to relax by the beautiful lake rather than board the packed bus back into the city. An English fan began swimming in the lake and a Brazilian gent began yelling at him to get out. He was quite irate about it but then told us why... it is polluted. We got chatting to him for a while. "England were unlucky" he said "Gerrard did it again against Uruguay". We chuckled.

Speaking of Uruguay... we only heard of Suarez's latest Dracula moment when sharing a taxi back into the city with some really nice Geordie fellas. We saw it when eating in a restaurant later on and my word, it ain't pretty. I'm so sick of the whole Suarez circus... I just want him to disappear altogether.

We checked out the Fan Zone. England fans jumping up and down, singing and waving plastic chairs in the air... that was enough for us. England going home, I can't say I'm too disappointed.

Next stop for us – Sao Paulo for Belgium vs South Korea.

Anyone got a spare Fellaini wig they can ship out to us?

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