With England's preparations for Brazil 2014 in full flow, Iain Macintosh grits his teeth, looks back at the 2010 squad and asks, where are they now?
Was it really four years ago that Fabio Capello unveiled his squad for England's most insipid World Cup campaign of the modern era? The nightmare seems so fresh. Capello had only just extricated himself from the PR calamity that was "The Capello Index," a half-witted plan to publicly grade players during the tournament, but if he thought his troubles were over, he was wrong. They were only just beginning.
Plunged into a group that the British tabloid The Sun had mockingly labelled "(E)ngland, (A)lgeria, (S)lovenia, (Y)anks," Capello's players went to pieces. A hideous error from Rob Green saw two points squandered against the United States, and their next match with Algeria was notable only for Wayne Rooney's public attack on the England fans, who booed them off the pitch at the end of a torturous 0-0 draw. An uninspiring 1-0 win over Slovenia secured qualification, but England were savaged by Germany in the next round, their only consolation being a refereeing error that granted them a fig leaf of injustice.
So who were those 23 men, and where are they now?
1. David James: James retired from international football in the wake of the defeat. He left Portsmouth for Bristol City, who he represented for two seasons before making 19 appearances for Bournemouth and then seeing out his career in Iceland with IBV Vestmannaeyjar. He is now a pundit for BT Sport.
2. Glen Johnson: It's been an uneventful four years for Johnson, who remains first choice for England and Liverpool.
3. Ashley Cole: Cole continued to be first choice for club and country right up until the end of 2013 when both Jose Mourinho and, subsequently, Roy Hodgson went off him. He retired from international football when he was left out of the 2014 squad.
4. Steven Gerrard: Gerrard continues as captain of club and country. He has also learned an important lesson about the importance of traction.
5. Michael Dawson: Uncapped at the time of his inclusion in this squad, Dawson has gone on to make four appearances for the senior team and has just completed his 10th season at Tottenham Hotspur, where he is blamed for most things that go wrong.
6. John Terry: Stripped of the captaincy in the build-up to the 2010 squad after allegations about his personal life, Terry was later charged and banned by the FA for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. He made his final England appearance against Moldova after giving a series of vintage displays at Euro 2012 and then retired from international football in protest at the FA's punishment. He has just signed a new one-year deal with Chelsea.
7. Aaron Lennon: Lennon continues to flatter to deceive at Tottenham Hotspur, where he maintains his career by always being slightly less awful than a parade of young blades and cripplingly expensive new recruits.
8. Frank Lampard: Lampard's abiding memory of the 2010 World Cup will always be the goal that never was, a powerfully struck effort that crossed the line by approximately 25 yards, only to be ignored by a team of officials who probably shouldn't be allowed to drive at night. Or at all. He has since become Chelsea's leading all-time goal scorer.
9. Peter Crouch: After becoming the unlikely and endearingly gawky face of England's 2006 campaign, Crouch was a bit-part player in 2010 and made only two more appearances for his country, signing off with a goal against France in November 2010. He left Tottenham in 2011 for Stoke, where he scores at a steady rate of around one goal every four games.
10. Wayne Rooney: Desperately disappointing in 2010, Rooney then proceeded to compromise England's hopes in 2012 by kicking a Montenegrin opponent up the bottom in qualifying, earning a two-game tournament suspension in the process. Still at Manchester United, despite a very public transfer request in 2010 and an alleged follow-up in 2013, he is yet to fulfill his potential at international level.
11. Joe Cole: The one-time golden boy of English football never quite recovered from a cruciate ligament injury sustained in 2009. Allowed to leave Chelsea on a free transfer in 2010, he flopped at Liverpool, excelled on loan at Lille and then failed to hold down a place in a mediocre West Ham side. Now 32, he is a free agent.
12. Rob Green: Given was summarily dropped after the "American Incident" and didn't play for England again until Hodgson's first game in charge, away in Norway. He kept a clean sheet, exorcised some demons, but never played again. Now with QPR, he is now preparing for the Championship play-off final and a chance to return to the Premier League.
13. Stephen Warnock: Warnock beat Leighton Baines to the 2010 World Cup squad but didn't feature at all. In fact, as his only two appearances have come in friendlies, he was offered the chance to play for Scotland in 2012 by former manager Craig Levein. Having left Aston Villa in 2013, Warnock is now on the books at Leeds United, though he is rumoured to be on the way out as the club cut costs.
14. Gareth Barry: Forever veering from heralded to under-appreciated, Barry was another who played in Hodgson's first game, but never played again. Perhaps that should have changed. After all, Barry has been excellent on loan at Everton.
15. Matthew Upson: Upson scored against Germany in that critical 1-4 defeat, but he would never play for England again. Relegation with West Ham would follow before a fleeting spell at Stoke. Now with Brighton & Hove Albion in the second flight, he looks set to be offered a new contract.
16. James Milner: Bafflingly named the Young Player of the Year in 2010, just eight years after his Premier League debut, Milner returned from the World Cup and signed up with Manchester City, where he remains heroically dependable and uninteresting.
17. Shaun Wright-Phillips: The 2010 World Cup effectively signalled the end of Wright-Phillips' relevance. His substitute appearance against Algeria was his last for England and when he returned to Manchester City, they replaced him with David Silva. He left for QPR, was deeply underwhelming and is now being linked to a move to MLS, where his hitherto less successful brother Bradley is currently shining.
18. Jamie Carragher: Carragher's return to the England squad was something of a surprise, given that he had already retired, but he played in two group games before suspension saw him lose his place to Matthew Upson. He played out three more seasons with Liverpool before retiring in 2013 to focus on disagreeing with Gary Neville on Sky Sports.
19. Jermain Defoe: Defoe continued to score goals for both Tottenham and England, but like Ashley Cole, he began to slip out of the reckoning for both in the 2013-14 season. Defoe left England for Toronto this year, scoring freely from his first game, but it wasn't enough to win over Hodgson.
20. Ledley King: With thudding inevitability, King injured himself in the opening minutes of England's opening game in 2010, and that was the end of his international career. He made 27 more appearances for Tottenham in the following two seasons before finally succumbing to injury in 2012. Club and country were left to wonder what might have been had his knees not been made of biscuits.
21. Emile Heskey: Heskey's 2010 World Cup campaign was his last for his country. He returned to Aston Villa, where he scored four league goals in 47 games, to go with the five from his previous 45, and then left for the Newcastle Jets in Australia, who really should have known better. Last season he scored one in 19.
22. Michael Carrick: Carrick continued to ping the ball about with impunity for Manchester United right up until the ill-fated 2013-14 campaign when he suddenly seemed intent on proving his many detractors right. He was dropped from the 2014 squad, but remains on the standby list.
23. Joe Hart: Hart was spared the indignity of playing any part in the miserable 2010 campaign and has since won two Premier League titles with Manchester City. He now stands unopposed as the first choice, last line of defence that protects England from disaster. Only time will tell whether he will be any better than the last guy.