ITALY, Spain and Germany, all giants of world football, and all eliminated in the group stages of Euro 2004. Who'd have thought that would have happened?

There was a lot of controversy surrounding Italy's exit from the championships, with some people claiming that the 2-2 draw between Denmark and Sweden ? the one result that would definitely put the Italians out ? was engineered.

I saw the game between the two Scandanavian rivals and I certainly don't think it was a fix. They were going pretty hard at one another. Frankly, the way the Italians played in this tournament, they deserved to go out. They didn't play any soccer that made you sit up and take notice.

Despite having a lot of excellent players, they couldn't score goals. Maybe it's the best thing that could have happened for them, now they can go home and regroup and try to get things right for the future.

It's a similar story with Germany. They were lucky to get a draw out of the game with Holland and poor in their game against Latvia.

They just did not play like the Germany we all know. They fell well short of expectations.

But German football is going through a difficult period at the moment. Hopefully they can reorganise for the next World Cup in two years' time ? when they will be the hosts ? and put out a decent team.

Spain's 1-0 defeat to Portugal saw them go out of the tournament too. Spain must be the best under-achievers in the world.

They have a team full of fantastic talent but it just goes to show that talent alone is not enough to succeed in football.

Every team needs people who can roll up their sleeves, get stuck in and win the war first, then you can start playing football.

ENGLAND'S Wayne Rooney has been the player of the tournament so far, for me.

Many of the papers back in England are describing the 18-year-old as "The New Pele".

It's undeniable that he's a fantastic talent, but he's got a long way to go before you can compare him with Pele.

Pele was a 17-year-old when he first his mark in an international tournament and played brilliantly to help his country Brazil win the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

Rooney is playing in a European Championship, against the cream of Europe, but he has yet to play in a World Cup against the best in the world.

If he can do it then, then maybe he will be like Pele.

What is for sure is that Rooney is a talent to be reckoned with and he has ice-cold veins. He's a breath of fresh air for the England team.

He's different from all the other English players in that he can go across people and beat them.

At the moment, he's playing like the most experienced and lethal of players ? and I'm including people like Zinedine Zidane and Ruud van Nistelrooy in that.

This boy is pacey and good at dropping off into midfield to find space and people have just not been picking him up. And if teams don't mark him, he's going to punish them.

ON the subject of our own Bermuda football team, all reports suggest we played very well and fought very hard in the World Cup qualifier against El Salvador last Sunday.

But now it's back to the drawing board. Fighting spirit alone is clearly not enough.

We had a lot of preparation and after everything, we advanced no further than we did four years ago. Something has to be wrong.

No-one seems to be talking about the fact that El Salvador played an under-23 team, but that is the reality.

We have to look hard at what's going on in football and do the right thing ? even if that means changing the direction we're going in now.