Firing Blanks

I nodded off for much of the second half of England's inglorious goalless draw with Algeria. Ironically this wasn't because I was watching live in the early hours of the morning. In fact, I viewed the replay of the game on Astro at 10.00 am. However, I did know the score, having accidentally switched on to hear the sad news at 9.30 when I thought I'd be safe from finding out. But in some ways it was fortunate as at least I was able to get some decent kip before starting our day's journeying to Shah Alam (returning troops) and Melaka, instead of forcing myself to stay awake in the vain hope that England's players would remember in which direction Algeria's goalposts lay. This is all grossly unfair - to Algeria. I thought they played really well, as did the USA a few nights back, and deserved watching.

I'm pleased that I never bought in to the delusion that Algeria were complete no-hopers. It seemed to me that any side who could get rid of Egypt, possibly the most consistent of African teams in terms of success in tournaments, were not likely to be slouches.

And looking ahead, frankly if England can't win against Slovenia then they haven't a snowball in hell's chance of doing anything in the rest of the tournament. And I'm not belittling Slovenia who are quite clearly more than little useful on their day. As is the case with almost every team in South Africa, holding out the exciting possibility that if a 'minor' nation can just hit great form for a few games there might just be a new name on the trophy - and I'm not talking about Spain. (Who, by the way, played some great attractive football against the Swiss, which made me quite upset they lost in some ways. Though despicably delighted in others.)