wpegg: True, but I suppose it's about money. We suck, with some of the most expensive footballers in the world playing for us. You suck equally with a much lower collective value of players. We disappoint, you guys fail to impress (though you weren't bad last time).
It's a bit like if you made the "World Series" actually a world series, and then lost to Spain. Given the amazing amounts the players get, it would rub slightly to see a near amateur team beat you.
The conclusion of that article was one that I totally agreed with, a large part of it is that we don't care. I live in Seattle which has about the closest thing to an authentic European style football experience, and even around here it's hard to get anybody to take much interest in World Cup who isn't an immigrant.
To an extent we tend to get a bit of a free pass because we're known to be more or less phoning it in, at least as far as national support goes.
Consequently, there was some degree of astonishment when we were doing marginally well.