WIMBLEDON, England - The pain isn't going away soon. This isn't Brooklyn in the 1940s. You can't say, "Wait ‘til next year.'' The next World Cup is four years away, four years for England to stew and grumble and wallow in the self-pity for which the English are famous.

"It's English custom,'' wrote Simon Barnes in The Times, "to seek someone to blame.''

So they are blaming the international soccer association, FIFA (The Fédération Internationale de Football Association in French), for a lack of instant replay, meaning this side of the Atlantic isn't much different from the other side.

You do remember Armando Galarraga and the perfect game that never was.

And like good English, they are blaming themselves, that is along with the newspapers, which are blaming the team, the coach, the attitude and virtually everything else.

There's an arrogance the English, perhaps all Brits, try hard to contain through diplomacy and good manners but on occasion find uncontrollable.

Soccer, tennis, golf, cricket, Rugby all were created here, and so there is an undeniable proprietary feeling toward the games.

Like, we invented them, old chap, so we should play them better than anyone.

As we know, they don't. At least on a global stage.

The English Premier League, including teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, is the best club soccer on earth. Not all the players are English, or even Brits, of course, and that becomes a problem in international competition.

Some of the stars go home, to Brazil or France - not that Les Bleus weren't their own disaster - or Portugal.

When the World Cup draw was made up, The Sun, the 3-million-plus circulation tabloid, cleverly showed the bracket in which the home squad was assigned as England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks, the first letters spelling EASY. A false sense of superiority.

As opposed to the headline the Sun ran on Monday after England's elimination, by Germany, ‘"YOU LET YOUR COUNTRY DOWN.'' A false sense of recrimination.

Barnes was kinder, if only slightly, describing the defeat as "England's worst ever performance at a World Cup finals.''

He took on Sepp Blatter of Switzerland, head of FIFA, who months ago said the World Cup never would make use of modern technology, replay. The way baseball, except for questions on home runs, would never make use of modern technology.

England scored an obvious goal Sunday night, the ball two feet over the line, but the official somehow missed the obvious, the way umpire Jim Joyce in what should have been the final out of Galarraga's distorted performance missed the obvious.

Blatter on Tuesday, with two or three billion people from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and everywhere else, having viewed the goal that the referee incorrectly judged wasn't a goal, announced Tuesday it would re-open the issue of replay.

"When you see the evidence of refereeing mistakes,'' Blatter said, "it would be nonsense not too consider changes.'' Would someone please notify Bud Selig?

At Wimbledon, where no replay is required to show that American tennis is, well, as bad as the English World Cup team, the players have an interesting take on video verification.

"We have it even though we don't need it,'' defending men's singles champion Roger Federer said of Hawkeye, which reads line calls to the millimeter and then shows them on a large screen. "But soccer should have it, and they don't.''

Since Germany won, 4-1, skeptics and cynics will point out it didn't matter whether England had that second goal or not. However, it would have tied the game, just before intermission, possibly giving the English the momentum that could have changed the game in the second half. Could have changed the game. Not necessarily would have changed the game.

In The Times, Barnes gave Blatter and the English team equal disparagment. One could be blamed for "clownish statements,'' the other for "a measureless extent'' of failure.

"The injustice,'' wrote Barnes, mocking virtually everyone. "The outrageous, stinking, horrible, unjust justice of it all. England robbed.

"We have a fat, bald, power-crazed Swiss (Blatter) to blame for this defeat. Why are we not seizing this heaven-sent gift with the outstretched and outraged hands of the entire nation? Because, England were so truly unbelievingly, so shatteringly appalling, that no amount of the England followers' selective blindness could conceal the truth ... as it was, England were merely humiliated.''

There are no collective nouns in Britain. It's not England "is'' but England ‘'are.'' There is, however, a collective sense of shame and bitterness. Soccer may be only a game, but it is their game. Or it was.