Luck or just good management?

Well although there is undoubtedly an element of luck involved in saving a spot-kick from 12 yards, Germany earned their luck with what can only be described as meticulous planning.

Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann saved two of Argentina's four penalties on Friday and correctly went the right way on the other two in their quarter-final shoot-out. However, guesswork had nothing to do with it.

Lehmann's former manager Huub Stevens has a personal database of 13,000 penalty kicks.

Before the Argentina game, Lehmann telephoned Stevens. The 36-year-old goalkeeper had notes on every likely penalty taker, including such details as "(Julio) Cruz - stand tall, don't move, dive right", and "(Roberto) Ayala - look at shooting foot, left low".

And sure enough Lehmann did the business and the Germans went through.

But England on the other hand apparently didn't even know the referee had to blow his whistle before they could go for goal against Portugal - a fact highlighted by Liverpool's Jamie Carragher.

And as a result the Three Lions converted just one penalty from four on Saturday - a 25% success rate.

It's unbelievable the FA, who can afford to fork out a reported £25million to Sven-Goran Eriksson, can be so ill prepared for something so important when they've failed so often the past.

While the Germans left no stone unturned in making sure they prevailed in their shootout, we had a befuddled Eriksson saying post-match he couldn't understand why we were so bad.

Simple Sven, the two approaches were poles apart - as were results.

And right now Germany are still on course to become world champions for a fourth time. England, they're back home.