While the twice-defeated England men's football team now have to rely on Italy to beat Costa Rica and Uruguay, plus their own skills, talents and efforts to overcome Costa Rica with enough goal difference to somehow skew the group table so that they can go through to the next round of the Brazil 2014 World Cup, it seems the women's team are in a much better stead.
After emerging victorious in their game against Ukraine last night, beating them with exactly the same margin that their male counterparts lost to Uruguay (2-1), all the women need to do to get through to the 2015 World Cup finals is get one point in the next two matches. Goals were scored by Casey Stoney, the team's former captain who plays for Arsenal, and Eniola Aluko, a Chelsea player who's scored nine goals in the past eight games.
And it's not only the England team that's doing well; there's hope for all those Welsh football fans (who have to swear allegiance to England every time its men's team scrapes it through to the finals), because the only team that could beat England in their group is Wales! That said, England are five points clear at the moment and, judging by the Three Lions' record, it looks unlikely that they'll falter. We won't explain it anymore, just look at those numbers for all of their Group Six fixtures:
Belarus W 6-0
Turkey W 8-0
Wales W 2-0
Turkey W 4-0
Montenegro W 9-0
Ukraine W 4-0
Belarus W 3-0
Ukraine W 2-1
Still to play: Wales on 21 August and Montenegro on 17 September
Yep, they've scored 38 goals in eight games, and let in just one. Coach Mark Sampson told the BBC: 'The girls were disappointed to lose their clean sheet record but we got three points and I was delighted with their effort and application.'
Maybe time to take a few hints, Rooney and co? And perhaps we should all start watching a bit more women's football; it'd be nice to see England win for once.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.