One week into the World Cup in Brazil and already there have been two major surprises with Spain, the defending champions, and England failing to advance from their respective groups with a match still to be played.

Yesterday, no doubt England fans everywhere were on the edge of their seats as Costa Rica, the group D outsiders, took the lead against Italy with a far post header from Bryan Ruiz in the 44th minute that went in off the underside of the crossbar.

They then hung on to record a famous victory and book their passage into the knockout stage for the first time in 24 years as England, who needed Italy to beat both Costa and Rica and Uruguay to have any chance of advancing, bowed out of the tournament.

It’s the first time in 56 years that England haven’t advanced past the group stage of a World Cup.

That was an unbelievable result for Costa Rica and fantastic for the region. Like I’ve been telling people all this time it doesn’t make a difference where you come from, if you play the game with purpose you will get a result. Costa Rica proved that and their advancement is good for Central America and good for Concacaf.

I’m glad for them. Now Italy and Uruguay will play in a crucial match to determine the second team to advance. The loser goes home, simple as that!

Fans like to see the smaller countries come through and get results like that and I think it’s good for football that countries nobody expects to win get results like this.

No doubt questions will be asked about the quality of players picked for the England team. They may have to go back and look at the number of foreign players at the Premier League clubs. You can’t have 30 foreign players in your squad and only four or five English players and still expect to have a strong national team. There should be a certain number of English players on the field at any time.

Spain’s failure to advance is bound to ask many questions as well. Nobody saw them going out, I don’t know anybody would have bet on Spain being thumped by Holland 5-1.

For me this World Cup so far hasn’t been like World Cups of the past. A lot of the top teams didn’t look to me like they were giving their all; they were just going through the motions. You can’t live off your name, you have to do it on the field and get stuck in from the beginning.

I think Brazil will do what they need to do to get through from group A as Mexico and Croatia have to play each other.

Germany look like they’re going to advance in group G while Portugal, in that same group, have to come out and play if they want to join them. The second week promises to be very exciting and this time next week we will be looking forward to the knockout stages.

Last week the scholarship banquet in my name was a fantastic event and I would like to thank everybody who turned up to be involved. I also want to thank those who organised it from Somerset Cricket Club. It was a great night and one that I’ll never forget.

I’m just so glad so many people came and we can all look at ourselves and say that when we hand out the first scholarship that we helped make it possible for that person to go to the next level by getting a college education. The turnout exceeded my expectations, the place was packed and I’m very appreciative to everybody who showed up.