The chants started before the final whistle. 'Not our team, not our problem' echoing from the stands. South Africa's World Cup exit has sparked a wave of trolling from fellow African nations.
But the real story? The tactical autopsy. Savvier observers, both here and there, are pointing the finger at something familiar.
A 'British-style' setup, they whisper. Defensive rigidity. A lack of plan B.
Sound familiar? It should. The parallels with England's own tournament heartbreaks are being drawn in dark corners of Whitehall pubs, but also in the press boxes of Johannesburg.
One former FA insider, nursing a scotch, put it bluntly: 'They've imported our worst habits. The caution. The fear of losing.
It's a death knell in knockout football.' Backbench MPs, never ones to miss a sporting metaphor, are already sharpening their knives. 'This is what happens when you let the Treasury run your football,' one shadow sports minister muttered.
The real game, as always, is off the pitch. The Lobby is buzzing with talk of a quiet panic in the corridors of power. Nobody wants to be seen as the one who 'did an England'.
But the polling data? It's brutal. The trolling from the continent stings.
But the self-inflicted wound? That's the one that keeps bleeding.
