The worst possible result for England has happened, a devastating late Suarez goal has left us clinging onto our World Cup hopes by a thread. However, while we are very down, we are not quite out.

First, we need Italy to beat Costa Rica. Any other result and we can book the plane home. Although Costa Rica did beat Uruguay, you would expect Italy to have too much for them.

If that happens, we would need to beat Costa Rica while hoping Italy do us a favour and beat Uruguay. The margin of victory needed against Costa Rica depends on Italy’s result against them. If we imagine Italy beat them 1-0, that leaves the table like this:
1. Italy 6 (2)
2. Costa Rica 3 (1)
3. Uruguay 3 (0)
4. England 3 (-2)

In that scenario we would need a 2 goal win. Two goals coupled with a Uruguay defeat lifts our GD up to 0 and theirs down to at least -1. Costa Rica’s would also go down to -1 meaning we overtake both. A two goal Italy win would mean we simply need to beat Costa Rica.

The big danger for me is Italy VS Uruguay. Let’s imagine Italy beat Costa Rica by at least 3. That puts their GD to +4 at worse, and they would likely need to lose by at least 3 goals just to relinquish top spot. That might see them rest players ready for the last 16 and give Uruguay a big chance to get the win. Or if we’re beating Costa Rica, an Italy and Uruguay draw would send both through. If word got through at half time that we were winning comfortably, would Italy and Uruguay settle for a result that sends both through? In honesty it wouldn’t surprise me. The long and short of it is that we need Italy to win, and it’s very likely that they won’t need to. We just have to hope whatever team they put out plays to the best of their ability, anything else would be detrimental to the integrity of both their country and the tournament and even football as a whole. What’s worrying is that even with both teams giving their all, you would not feel confident of an Italy win.

As I said in the last blog, we need to hope for a similar story to the USA in 2009. They needed a SIX goal swing to qualify after losing their first two games. They won 3-0 against Egypt while Italy lost 3-0 to Brazil. USA went through on goals scored. That was a far more outlandish scenario than the results needed for us to gl through.

Of course we still need to beat Costa Rica and we can’t take that as a given. They’re a good side that plays exciting football. Their game against Italy will I think tell us whether the Uruguay game was a bit of a freak occurrence or whether Costa Rica are to be feared as well as respected.

A treble of the results England need to have a hope of qualifying has odds of 5.43/1. The three results are ones that as standalone results you would expect to happen. It’s a bit like Man United needing to beat Stoke while hoping Man City beat Stoke and Everton. In truth, it’s a very tough ask and to go through having lost our opening two group games would be unprecedented but all we can do is believe.

My first hope is that we at least go into the final group game with something to play for. I would hate for it to be a dead rubber. Italy do us a favour tomorrow and we will just have to make sure we do our job and just hope and pray.