It’s never easy supporting England at major tournaments, isn’t it? Once again, 20million of us found this out, following a frustrating opener to the 2010 World Cup campaign in the altitude of Rustenberg.
A horrendous error by West Ham’s Robert Green, somehow fumbling a Clint Dempsey shot that looked easier to save with his eyes closed earned Bob Bradley’s USA a hard-fought and deserved point on Saturday night. Once again, the Three Lions opening performance will have not set the alarm bells ringing in the camps of fellow favourites Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Holland and Germany.
And it had all started really well for Fabio Capello’s men. Just four minutes had been played, when Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Emile Heskey all linked up beautifully in the build-up to England’s first goal of the 2010 finals, scored by the new skipper, Steven Gerrard. If you were watching ITV HD, 1.5million missed the goal, but the other 18.5million would have been roaring around the country to the delightful start. Sadly, this brilliant advantage was squandered six minutes before half-time, by a blunder of the first magnitude.
Green, only selected ahead of David James and Joe Hart a mere two hours before kick-off had been given very little to do, and the evidence of the error he made suggested he must have been half asleep. Fulham winger Dempsey did well to evade the pressing Gerrard three times. His shot was ambitious and looked absolutely no threat. However, Green produced the clangers of all clangers by allowing the ball to slip through his grasp and trickling into the net. It was a horrendous moment which only guarantees Green’s participation in the traditional Christmas Blunder DVD’s, rather than a place in England’s next team.
By then, Capello was already looking animated on the touchline. James Milner, still suffering from a virus that had plagued him all week, looked out-of-sorts and once booked, was replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips. This was a surprising move, with many believing Joe Cole might have been a better bet. At the interval, Ledley King’s groin couldn’t keep up with the pace, and with indications that he might be out for three weeks, his selection looks like to be a gamble too many, especially after the injury that Rio Ferdinand picked up in training ten days ago. Jamie Carragher replaced him at half-time, and when he was easily skinned by the threatening Jozy Altidore, questions were asked about the pace of the England defensive unit. In this exchange, Green did at least bounce back, by producing a good save at his near post, which rebounded onto the post and away from danger.
Only in the last twenty minutes did England threaten to score again, with Emile Heskey missing a one-on-one, smashing a shot down Tim Howard’s throat, which had he placed it either side, would have beaten the Everton goalkeeper. Wayne Rooney was well marked out of the entire game, but he produced a few moments of quality, which included a long-range effort which had Howard scrambling. Wright-Phillips also had a chance which he squandered and eleven minutes was nowhere near enough time for Peter Crouch to make any impact.
By far, this wasn’t the start that Operation Capello had in mind. However, England drew their opener in 1966 against Uruguay, and still won the Jules Rimet trophy. We lost the 1986 opener to Portugal and drew the first game of the 2002 tournament in Korea against a far better looking Sweden side. The Three Lions are notorious slow starters, so surely we can only get better. Whether we have World Cup winning potential will only be realised more when our second game takes place, on Friday night in Cape Town against African outsiders Algeria.
Let’s not give up and keep the belief….
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