England kicked off their World Cup campaign to our neighbours across the pond this evening, culminating in a one-all draw (or a "tie") if you're American. Gerrard got England off to the perfect start, slotting home a lovely through ball from Heskey inside four-minutes. However, just before half time Clint Dempsey's speculative effort was fumbled by Robert Green as the ball trickled over the line.
It's never good for one's health to watch England play. Always tense, it literally shreds your nerves to smithereens and is rarely an enjoyable experience. They started off brightly enough, but Milner, having picked up a yellow card within the first 25minutes was promptly, if not surprisingly subbed with only half an hour played for Shaun Wright-Phillips. Whether this was due to worries of his continually aggressive challenges or due to the fact he was unfit having been struck down with a virus this week is unknown. To be honest, I'm not sure if Wright-Phillips was the right man to bring on. I can understand it to a certain extent; Cherundolo and Donovan were causing problems with their speed down the right and whilst Wright-Phillips was quick enough to keep pace with them, I can't help thinking that Joe Cole might have had a more considerable impact on the game. Ledley King, suffering a groin injury, was taken off at half-time as Jamie Carragher replaced him. England looked to push forward as Heskey latched on to a through ball from Lennon only to fire straight at Tim Howard. For everything else Heskey contributed to the match, this further illustrated his lack of confidence in front of goal. Rooney then played Wright-Phillips in who also blasted straight into the hands of Howard. Green did sort of, kinda, make amends for his earlier screw-up as Carragher was embarrassed by Altidore who raced past him to see his shot pushed onto the post by Green. This exposed yet another weakness in the lack of pace in the English central defence. With no Rio Ferdinand at the back it is worryingly conceivable to see fast players zipping past Terry and his partner with ease.
To be fair, the Americans are a good side and certainly no pushovers. Ever the pessimist, I was actually half expecting a major upset this evening, so a draw isn't the worst result in the world. There were some plus points. England started to look like a good side in the second half, far more imaginative but alas when the gears really started to change into place and Rooney looked a bit more lively, it was already seventy-minutes. My shock man of the match was that great big lummox Emile Heskey. He managed to win the majority of balls hoofed up to him and hold onto them particularly well. Seems his biggest contribution to England's campaign won't be his World Cup ruining fall onto team-mate Rio Ferdinand after all.
All in all I'm not too disappointed by the result. Let's remember that the USA dumped European Champions Spain out of last year's Confederations Cup after 34 games unbeaten and also lead Brazil two-nil in the final, only to succumb three-two in the end. What is a concern now though is if England can win the group. I expect them to beat Slovenia and Algeria comfortably, but I also expect the States to do the same. This will leave both teams on seven points in the group, with the winner being decided on goal difference. So if we score less than the Yanks, a Round-16 play-off against Germany looks highly likely. And we all know what happens when England play ze Germans.
So I leave you in anticipation of tomorrow's headlines in the Sun. If the last few about the game with America are anything to go by, we should be in for a treat. Perhaps not as much as if we had won though...
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