Just like watching Sunderland “defending” at Crystal Palace last season, said Pete Sixsmith, and it may only have been two or three by then.
Like them or not, though, the German humiliation of Brazil was as clinical as it was excruciating to follow.
It was torture for the home fans, of course, but painful enough, too, for anyone with a passing preference for Brazil. I kept thinking of those people who cannot properly enjoy Fawlty Towers. They appreciate John Cleese’s comic genius and the superb writing of Cleese and Connie Booth, then his wife and Polly in the series. They just wince too much at the agonies of Basil to be able to laugh at the gags and slapstick,