Huge sigh of relief all around. England beat Paraguay 1-0, officially an own goal but basically Beckham’s freekick was on its way into the net when it met a very slight deflection.
If England intend to get much further in the competition though they are going to have to play better than this. It’s the old story, back passing that allowed the pressure to ease and giving the ball away by kicking it into a general area and not to a person. It seems pretty straight forward to me. If you pass the ball to fellow team members in the opposition’s end of the pitch, they can’t score and you might. DUH! Sheesh, even I, a casual watcher, know that.
They all need a good kick up the backside or else it won’t matter whether or not Rooney’s foot is healed, they’ll be on the bus home, knocked out by a team with half the talent but 100% more passion.
In other World Cup news: Trinidad and Tobago scared the you know what out of the Swedes and Argentina were really lucky to win against the Ivory Coast. Personally I was cheering on the Africans, they were very unlucky not to get a point.
US English language commentary/analysis of matches so far: can we get some people who know what they are talking about? Loads of tripe is being spewed forth and it just frosts me. Spanish language coverage sounds a lot better even though I can’t understand a word they are saying plus they have enough respect for the games that they show the teams coming on to the pitch and the national anthems being played.
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