England's World Cup recipe includes equal parts faith, fear

"England expects!" The phrase is everywhere: in the tabloids, on the radio, splashed across ads. It harks back to 1805, when the naval hero Horatio Nelson warned his sailors, "England expects that every man will do his duty."
Now the battle is not against Napoleon's warships but against the USA, which England faces Saturday in its first match of the 2010 World Cup.
So just what does England expect?
The nation's feelings about the faceoff in South Africa are a complicated brew that's as English as a pint in a pub. The mood here is a mixture of bravado and nerves, hope and fear, longing and self-doubt. The English soccer team is ranked eighth in the world, the USA 14th, but in a land steeped in tradition, the Three Lions' tradition consists of letting down the fans. And now fans never dare to voice expectations of victory without adding caveats.
OGUCHI ONYEWU: Ready for 90 minutes vs. England
"It's England that we're talking about, so nothing can ever run smoothly," says Neil Regelous, a London bank analyst. "Everyone builds us up to say, 'Yes, this time, we're going to win it!' And then we'll lose to a lesser nation."
England, the country that invented soccer and has one of the top pro leagues in the world, hasn't won the Cup since 1966. In this soccer-mad nation, that adds up to "44 years of hurt," in the words of the Daily Star Sunday.
Despite fans' apprehensions, anticipation is building for an event that unites the country as almost nothing else does. The white-and-red St. George's cross, the flag of England, flutters from cars and windows. Department store John Lewis reports TV sales are up 30% over last year.
"Historically, the World Cup has always been a big driver for TV sales," says John Kempner, a buyer at John Lewis.
Up to 20 million Brits are expected to tune in to watch the match, which starts at 7:30 p.m. local time, according to the Football Association. More than 1 million of the few who will be at work Saturday still plan to catch the game, pollster ComRes says.
Fans look forward to a time when the buttoned-up English become cheerful, even talkative.
Saturday's game "is going to be wicked, man," says Travis McKoy, a London security guard. "I love the World Cup. I love the feeling in London during the World Cup. I can't wait."
A series of disappointments
The best the Three Lions have done recently is to reach the semifinals, back in 1990. In 2002 and 2006, England didn't get past the quarterfinals.
"In the 44 years since '66, we've been let down, we've achieved nothing and all our hopes and dreams have crashed and died," says Tony Morris, a banking official who works in London and is flying to South Africa for the tournament. "We build ourselves up only to fall."
Yet English fans keep the faith.
Even when the players "have not been that good, it's, 'We're going to win the World Cup!' " says Tina Mermiri, a research manager in London.
Many fans are nourishing higher hopes than usual. England has a roster of strong and experienced players. Manager Fabio Capello already is being compared to Alf Ramsey, who guided England to its 1966 triumph. The team had one of its best qualifying seasons in recent memory, winning nine of 10 games.
The USA, on the other hand, still is regarded as a second-rate power, at least when it comes to "footie." After all, the USA has never done better in the tournament than third, way back in 1930. The tabloid The Sun, assigning each national team a role in Toy Story 3, said the USA was toy dinosaur Rex — "big and powerful but in reality there is no real menace to them."
Such perceptions led to widespread glee when the World Cup groups were announced in December. As part of Group C, England also faces low-ranked Slovenia and Algeria. The top two teams from the group will advance to the round of 16.
Paul White, a London lawyer, heard the news in a taxi.
"I cheered," he confesses, in part because "we can beat them."
English bookmakers have made the home team a 1-2 favorite vs. the USA. Asked by an American news reporter if he had any worries about dispatching the Yanks, truck driver George Curley of London scoffed, "Not at all. You don't play the game. You can't even get the name right."
But in the back of every England fan's mind is the niggling memory of a 1950 event known — to Americans — as the "Miracle on Grass." In one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history, England, then the "Kings of Football," was humbled 1-0 by a hastily assembled American lineup.
U.S. soccer invasion
The event has not slipped the Americans' minds either.
Saturday's match "is a chance to go into the history books like the 1950 side, and things like that prove what can happen," U.S. player Jay DeMerit said Tuesday.
Since 1950, the upstarts across the pond formed their own professional league, even poaching English star David Beckham, who defected to the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007. Nine of the 23 members of the U.S. team played in England's pro leagues this season. Among them is goalkeeper Tim Howard, who starts for Everton.
The result is an intimate familiarity with the USA's first foe.
"The advantage we have is that we have played against most of the England guys before many times, so there is no intimidation factor," DeMerit, a defender for Watford, told reporters Sunday. "We know what they are capable of, and we are prepared."
After close study of the American presence on their home turf, the English are nervous. Fans and commentators alike praise the U.S. team's organization and strength.
"The USA are a fast, super-fit team of athletes," Nigel Worthington, manager of the Northern Ireland national team, wrote in the Sunday Mirror. "England will have to be mentally and physically right from the first whistle."
It didn't help that Rio Ferdinand, England's captain and most experienced defender, injured his knee during practice and had to bow out.
"It definitely is a blow," White says. "It is a weaker England team without Rio. The U.S. definitely has a chance to upset the England party."
Never mind that if England loses to the USA, the team could still progress to the next round. The expectation that England will polish off the ragamuffins from the Colonies means that a loss would be a humiliation.
"It would be a day of mourning the next day in England. The whole country would be in shock," says London lawyer Rowley Higgs, adding jokingly, "I'm not sure many of us would make it into work on Monday."
Such talk of national distress over a loss is no exaggeration, says Richard Elliott, director of the Lawrie McMenemy Centre for Football Research at Southampton Solent University.
"For the 90 minutes that they play, they are not 11 footballers wearing the three lions on their shirt," he says. "They become the English nation, and we judge ourselves by the performance on the pitch."
For fan Barry Thirlway, a London musician, the Three Lions will have his loyalty no matter how they do Saturday.
"You've got to stick with them even though it can be incredibly frustrating," he says. "Occasionally, they give you little bits and pieces and bring you joy that other things can't.
"We live in hope."

XOXO:
Lost Seasons 1-6 DVD Boxset


Detailed DVD Info

Category:Adventure Drama Fantasy Mystery Thriller
Name:Lost
Season:1 2 3 4 5 6
TV Series Release Date:22 September 2004
Aspect Ratio:1.78: 1
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Language:English With Removable Subtitles
Format:Support Both NTSC and PAL
Discs:43 pcs

TV Series Info
Leading Role: Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Daniel Dae Kim, Emilie de Ravin, Yunjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn, Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Dominic Monaghan, Harold Perrineau, Michael Emerson, Henry Ian Cusick, Elizabeth Mitchell, Madison, Maggie GraceDirector: J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof


Plot Summary
Lost is an American live-action television series. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. Each episode typically features a primary storyline on the island as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character's life, though other time-related plot devices change this formula in later episodes. The pilot episode was first broadcast on September 22, 2004, and the series concluded with its 121st and final episode airing on May 23, 2010 at the end of its sixth season.

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