Brazil World Cup fever is sweeping the world. Although the Chinese national football team is out of the World Cup finals this time; China never lacks football-mad fans, tens of millions of them spend sleepless nights in front of TV cheering, screaming for their own favorite teams, such as England team. As modern football originated in Britain, will England team have a higher chance to win the final, and how can China learn from the experience of English football’s development? With these questions, People’s Daily Online interviewed the press counselor of British Embassy in China, John Gallagher, on June 17.

People’s Daily Online: Shall we start talking about last Sunday’s match - England vs Italy? Italy won 2 to 1. How do you comment this match? Will it make it difficult for England to advance from the Group D?

John Gallagher: I think it is a sudden shame England lost that game, but I know lots of England’s fans were very encouraged by some performances of England team on that day. It was a real chance for England young players to show what they can do. I think this disappointing result gains one course for optimizing for rest tournaments. So hopefully if England team shows much energy, creativity and enthusiasm, I think they will go far.

People’s Daily Online: On this Friday, English team will meet Uruguay. How do you predict the score of this match?  

John Gallagher, press counselor of British Embassy in China, receives the interview with People’s Daily Online on June 17. I think it is very difficult to do game prediction. Uruguay has got lots of really good players. And the best player in England premier league last year was Luis Suarez, who stopped to play for Uruguay; he is a very dangerous player. But Uruguay also has disappointing result when it lost to Costa Rica, it really shocks. I think it is really difficult to predict, because both teams need to win that game, both teams will try really hard; they both have lots of pressure on that game. I hope that be a good football game, I am hoping they will win, but I think both teams are very nervous.

People’s Daily Online: How do you predict the final ranking, which team will be the winner? Would you please give the players some words of encouragement?  

John Gallagher: While, I like to think England will win the world cup, the first time in the almost 50 years that will be great. But it is very difficult to predict, because there are lots of teams that have young players that I am not so familiar with, plus people I haven’t seen them in previous couple of games. Spain, Brazil, Argentina are all strong teams, but it is difficult to know who will go all the way. But what we do know is in every world cup we has one team to win, so the expectation is very low, but they still manages to go very far, hopefully this year will be England.