18 June - Cape Town - England vs Algeria

'GOALLESS AND GRUMPY'



ENJOY THE SLIDESHOW. WILL HOPEFULLY POST THE VIDEO TOMORROW.

Something is very wrong with England. This is a team that qualified for the World Cup in style, winning their first nine games in a manner that rightly established them as one of the favourites to lift the trophy in July. How long ago those days seem now.

Apart from the first 20 minutes against the USA, England have been shocking. Completely lacking in penetration, this England team brings to mind the image of trying to knock in a nail with a hamster. Rooney looks like he’d rather be somewhere else. He just doesn’t look fully committed in the 50/50 challenges. It’s almost as if he is afraid of aggravating his recent injury. Gerrard looks as ineffectual as he has done all season for Liverpool and, despite having two years to prepare for this tournament, Capello still can’t decide on his strikeforce combination. It all contributed to a dismal England performance last night and a pretty dismal game all round.

Maybe we’re just taking it out on England because they were supposed to break our duck of going to see goalless draws. This must be some kind of record. Of the 23 games played in Fifa 2010 South Africa so far, 3 have been goalless. Guess which 3 games we’ve been to? That’s 4 and a half hours of World Cup football without seeing a single goal. Thank God we’ve got another 13 games left to see. There’s got to be at least 1 goal in there.

All a bit of a shame, really, because the atmosphere at Cape Town Stadium last night was unbelievable. 

20 000 visiting English supporters created a sea of white and red in this stunning arena. A couple of thousand highly energetic Algerian supporters played their part too.

It was a great day all round yesterday in Cape Town. This is exactly how I imagined it would be during the World Cup; thousands of fans filling the streets and the senses being assailed by wave after wave of sound and colour.

This was my 7 year-old (Megan)’s first and last World Cup 2010 game, and it was quite a treat for me to have all 3 of my kids by my side last night. Megan put her head in my lap out of sheer boredom after about 20 minutes of the game. I suspect most people in the stadium would have done the same if they could have been sure of not getting slapped in the face by the person sitting next to them. Megan eventually perked up when I informed her that there were only 5 minutes left. We could all identify with that.

However, if World Cup history is anything to go by, this may yet turn out to be a great tournament for England. When England reached the quarter-final in 1986 and the semi-final in 1990 they did so after an atrocious first 2 games. In 86 England had just 1 point after 2 games, while in 90 they had 2, the same position they find themselves in this morning. The omens get even better for England when you consider that in both 86 and 90 they drew their second group game 0-0 (vs Morocco in 1986 and vs Netherlands in 1990). One of the great truths of the World Cup is that the winners very often start slowly. Italy are experts at this. The hare and tortoise theory is confirmed if you look at how, in the past, teams like Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain have started like a house on fire only to fall spectacularly in the early knockout stages. Argentina could be the hare in 2010.

That’s the bright side. The dark side is that England look appalling and I’m not sure I can see them turning it around in time to save themselves.

**We’re writing this about 20km the other side of Laingsburg. We left Cape Town about 3 hours ago, on the way to Nelspruit. While driving through Worcester, it occurred to us that we are following in the footsteps of our forefathers who, in the late 19^th century, travelled north from the Cape in search of gold. Here we are, in the early 21^st century, travelling north from the Cape in search of goals.