Having salivated over every World Cup spectacle that an exasperated wife and new-born daughter would begrudgingly allow, I stumbled across an interesting measure before the England football team's quarter-final match with Portugal.

In the group stages, England had scored a similar number of goals to Italy, France and Portugal. But as fellow exponents of the beautiful game will attest, there was a distinct lack of quality in England's open play performances. The rest is history.