England just four acts of God away from glory, confirms Southgate

After successfully tricking Belgium into beating his side, Gareth Southgate has confidently declared that England are just one coup and a natural disaster away from winning the World Cup.In a piece of tactical mastery, Southgate managed to lure the naive Roberto Martinez into defeating the Three Lions, teeing up a last-16 clash with Colombia followed by a quarter-final against either Sweden or Switzerland, dodging Brazil.“We’re not scared of playing anyone,” Southgate roared to FourFourTwo.“Except Brazil, of course,” the England boss added more quietly. “They’d have thrashed us.“Don’t much like the look of France either, or Argentina, or Spain, and Portugal have Cristiano Ronaldo so you can forget about that.”Poison, coups, bad dates, tornadoAn insider in the England camp has leaked to FourFourTwo that Southgate’s master plan involves Colombia being hit by food poisoning, Sweden pulling out due to a coup d’etat, Spain getting the date of the game wrong and Brazil failing to execute their game plan in the final as a result of nerves and a tornado localised solely to their half of the field.“On our day we can beat the best in the world,” Southgate boomed.“But why would you take that risk?” he added as a mumbled aside. “Even having to face Panama and Tunisia was a bit of a gamble in my eyes. I’d sooner play nobody at all.”Many experts believe that this could be England’s best chance since 1966 to win football’s biggest prize, as long as they aren’t required to beat any of the world’s best 20 teams at football.While that feat is unheard of at a World Cup, Greece were able to win Euro 2004 without mustering a goal, or indeed a shot on target. A subsequent investigation found they hadn’t in fact qualified for the tournament but had turned up with spectator tickets.Please note: This story is satirical. It's amazing we have to say this.New features you'd love on FourFourTwo.com