World Cup pundit raises eyebrows with &x27;ugly daughter&x27; comparison on CBS Sports Kieran HornMon, July 13, 2026 at 9:08 AM UTC 6 Mike Grella on CBS Sports Credit:CBS Sports Mike Grella has taken a swipe at England&x27;s display against Norway in the World Cup. Despite advancing to the semifinals, the Three Lions have faced intense criticism, with Grella making the bizarre comparison that praising the performance is like "having the world&x27;s ugliest daughter and saying &x27;oh, you&x27;re so beautiful baby&x27;".
World Cup pundit raises eyebrows with 'ugly daughter' comparison on CBS Sports
Kieran HornMon, July 13, 2026 at 9:08 AM UTC
6
Mike Grella on CBS Sports -Credit:CBS Sports
Mike Grella has taken a swipe at England's display against Norway in the World Cup. Despite advancing to the semi-finals, the Three Lions have faced intense criticism, with Grella making the bizarre comparison that praising the performance is like "having the world's ugliest daughter and saying 'oh, you're so beautiful baby'".
Grella, the ex-soccer star, has been serving as a pundit for CBS Sports during the World Cup. He featured on their panel for England's 2-1 quarter-final victory on Saturday and, despite never earning a senior cap for the USMNT, had plenty to say about the Three Lions.
In a clip posted to CBS' X account, he said: "The good news is you have two games left... and you can actually win a World Cup. The bad news is you're not very good at football. You're not good with the ball or in transition. You leave unbelievable spaces in between the lines.
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"By English standards, a really poor performance. It's impressive how poor you are and are still able to get away with a win. It's like having the world's ugliest daughter and saying 'on, you're so beautiful baby'.
"Let's call a spade, a spade here, that was embarrassing how you got through that game. You made Norway look like world-beaters.
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"The credit is, two more games and you can win a World Cup. You have unbelievable superstars in [Jude] Bellingham and [Harry] Kane, but through facets of the game, not good enough, at all.", reports the Mirror.
Former Premier League striker Troy Deeney, also on the panel, later weighed in with his own assessment. While slightly less scathing than his colleague, the 38-year-old, who never earned an international cap himself, pulled no punches when evaluating England's performance.
He said: "They keep telling you the performances are going to come, but they might not. In wide areas we are average at best, when it's 0-0, we're playing with the shackles on.
"They told us that they were going to play front-footed football. There's so many questions over what we see compared to the result.
"The results are brilliant, we keep winning but Norway with Haaland, who probably had his worst game of the tournament, was brought off when they were chasing a goal and they still had 10 shots in the game.
England have been blasted for their World Cup display against Norway -Credit:(Photo by Liu Lu/VCG via Getty Images)
"So we don't dominate or control games and then also the changes, in my opinion, we got away with it. Bringing off Declan Rice, we had Reece James as a holding midfielder with Elliot Anderson further up, then we take of Konsa and put James at right-back.
"We just keep on changing different things, we are getting away with it. I don't care by the way if we win the World Cup, great, give Thomas Tuchel a statue. But again, I'm allowed to say that I am not convinced by what we see other than that we can grind out results, which is great, but there's another level."
Despite lacking flair in their victory, England have advanced to the semi-finals and will take on Argentina for a place in next Sunday's final. If Thomas Tuchel's squad can overcome the defending champions, either Spain or France will await them in New Jersey.
Source: "AOL Sports"
Source: Sports
Published: July 14, 2026 at 02:27AM on Source: PRIME TIME
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