England 1, Slovenia 0

Second place in Group C, as it stands we’ll play…errr…another team on Sunday. More later. But it could be…well…them.

Slovenia Preview (World Cup Version)

Difficult to know where to start for this one: I don’t think any of us were expecting the current situation to be this dire. If we don’t win and the States beat Algeria then we’ll have been knocked out in the group stages for the first time since 1958.

We previewed our game with the Slovenes last year (the original article is here) and not a great deal has changed for them: Robert Koren has since been released by WBA and they have not been allowed to replace striker Nejc Pecnik (broken ankle).

Let’s start with the numbers. We won 2-1 at Wembley last September with a penalty from Frank Lampard and a Jermain Defoe goal before Zlatan Ljubijankic got one back for them six minutes before time. Since then they have only lost once (against Russia in the first leg of the qualification playoff in November) in their last nine games. In that respect, they’re actually doing better than us as we’ve lost twice since beating them: the last qualification game against Ukraine and the defeat in the desert friendly against Brazil.

When I have a punt I normally only look at away form for tournament games and this is where things start getting a little worrying. Over the last 20 games our form is better than theirs, but over the last five games Slovenia have outperformed us and have kept three clean sheets to our…ummm…one. And before you ask, that doesn’t include the game against the Platinum Stars, which sounds like some kind of Swedish pop band from the 1970s than a genuine football team.

That stat alone indicates that there won’t be many goals tomorrow. Under 2.5 according to the bookies, although interestingly the spread betting firms seem to think it might be around 2.6 but that might be to attract people who think this game is going to be a walkover (in the same way as Algeria was). Consecutive England clean sheets aren’t out of the question – the one bright spot so far is the defence – but once again it’s our lack of firepower up front that’s a problem.

As for all the other stuff…Fab and JT might be doing a wonderful job papering over the cracks, but there’s absolutely no doubt that there’s something wrong in the camp. So look out for various ‘inside stories’ being flogged to the tabloids after English interest in the tournament ends (but remember not to buy any featured in the Daily M*il) and enjoy the rather wooden declarations of love and peace while you can because if we go out tomorrow the fallout is going to be  absolutely spectacular. The only thing saving us from being a total laughing stock is that France have done that with their usual Gallic flair: in footballing terms we’re playing about as well as Greece, who are currently packing their bags after losing to Argentina.

I’ve had a couple of calls tonight about where I’m going to watch the game and to be honest I don’t know yet…but I’ve not ruled out behind the sofa. I’m also not completely sure if all red is the right choice sartorially (Wales anyone?) and when it comes to making a prediction here I have to be honest and say that I really have no idea what’s going to happen. I know what I’d like to happen, but I’m not prepared to put my money where my mouth is.

The best case scenario is an England win, but realistically speaking – and that takes out recent form into account – we may be looking at a tense game that might not be decided until well into the second half. An early England goal would be nice but wouldn’t necessarily guarantee the right result; it’s possible that an early strike by Slovenia might galvanise England into some kind of action. On the other hand, can we actually play any worse than we already have done?

Still, we’ve been in similar – and worse – situations before and we’ve got out of them. On June 11th 1986 we faced Poland in our last group game needing a win to qualify for the next round. It was a late kick off for those days (kick off was 4pm local time which means about 9pm GMT) and when Gary Lineker scored the third my dad and I made so much noise my mum told us off. Enjoy!

Rubbish

About as bad as Scotland in 1978, and that’s saying something. All down to a scenario that’s very similar to 1986: we need to beat an Eastern European side to go through. Wayne Rooney hat-trick anyone?

Algeria Preview

You often hear pundits claiming that there’s no such thing as an easy game in the World Cup anymore: while they’re probably correct, it’s difficult to contradict the argument that England’s game with Algeria tomorrow night is potentially our easiest game in Group C.

The Algerians do not travel well; the Desert Foxes also have a very poor recent record against European opposition. As well as losing 1-0 to Slovenia last weekend, they have also recently suffered 3-0 defeats to both Ireland and Serbia. Algeria have won three away games in the past year: 2-0 against the mighty Zambia during World Cup qualification, and wins over Mali and Ivory Coast in the African Nations Cup earlier this year. Algeria were lucky to win the latter: they trailed 2-1 going into stoppage time.

Only three of their squad of 23 play in Algeria including two of the three keepers, one of whom (Faouzi Chaouchi) was to blame for the goal the Slovenians scored on Sunday. The rest of the squad play in Europe and it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that six of them play in France. Closer to home, defender Nadir Belhadj and midfielder Adlene Guedioura play for Portsmouth and Wolves respectively; Madjid Bougherra is a Rangers player, which might explain why he’s not exactly been backwards in coming forwards today.

Compounding their poor record in front of goal, they’ll be without striker Abdelkader Ghezzal, who was sent off for two stupid yellow cards in their first game. Veteran striker Rafik Saifi (who plays in the French 2nd division
for Istres) or the relatively inexperienced Rafik Djebbour of AEK Athens are the only other options at striker: Saifi is the only player in the entire squad who has scored more than ten goals at international level.

If you fancy a punt, it’s possible that we could keep a clean sheet (only Brazil in 1970 and Romania in 1998 have scored against us in corresponding group games since 1966), but in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve got a few issues of our own. Apart from the inclusion of Gareth Barry, the team for tomorrow is still a mystery and – perhaps more worryingly – Stevie G’s goal against the USA last Saturday was the first time an England player had scored in an ‘away’ game since Jermain Defoe scored twice against the Dutch before the start of last season: we don’t have any Japanese defenders up our sleeve for this game. Wayne Rooney and Emile Heskey haven’t scored in an away game since the 4-0 win over Kazakhstan just over a year ago – although I agree with John Motson that Rooney is due a goal for England.

It’s possible that there won’t be that many goals in this game: one of the less appealing scenarios (other than an Algeria win or another draw) would be something similar to the win over Trinidad & Tobago in the last World Cup. That game was going nowhere until two late goals settled it. The last time we failed to score in the second group game was in 1990 (a dreadful goalless draw with the Dutch) and we haven’t scored three since beating Argentina in 1962.

For anoraks and train spotters, here’s the list of the second group games England have played in:

1950: England 0-1 USA (yes, that game)

1954: England 2-0 Switzerland (we beat the hosts!)

1958: England 0-0 Brazil

1962: England 3-1 Argentina

1966: England 2-0 Mexico (Bobby Charlton scores from just outside Wembley station)

1970: England 0-1 Brazil (the Gordon Banks save, the Bobby Moore tackle and a thin…well, thin-ish…Francis Lee)

1982: England 2-0 Czechoslovakia

1986: England 0-0 Morocco (Ray Wilkins gets sent off)

1990: England 0-0 Netherlands

1998: England 1-2 Romania

2002: England 1-0 Argentina (the Beckham penalty)

2006: England 2-0 Trinidad & Tobago

Overall: P12 w6 D3 L3 F13 A5 (so that’s less than a goal a game)

11 Lions expects (and really, really wants!) an England win, although it may not be the landslide that some fans seem to be expecting. Having said that, a convincing win would be just what the doctor ordered and would set us up nicely for the last group game next Wednesday.

We’ll have some kind of reaction either late tomorrow night or on Saturday morning, although after a hellish work week Saturday lunchtime might be a more realistic option. Enjoy the game…and spare a thought for the French.

Only joking!

Robert Koren Does Robert Green A Favour

Slovenia have just beaten Algeria 1-0 thanks to a Robert Koren goal, which means we’re now in second place behind the Slovenes; our next opponents (Algeria) are bottom and their performance this afternoon was very reminiscent of their African Cup Of Nations effort; substitute Abdelkader Ghezzal of Siena was sent off for two silly yellow cards (shirt pulling and deliberate handball) and keeper Faouzi Chaouchi did his best Robert Green impression. The bookies are currently quoting England at roughly around 1/4 to beat the Algerians but our outright win odds have drifted since yesterday: average price is 8/1 with best odds being 17/2, which is roughly the same as Holland.

Our potential ’round of sixteen’ opponents start their campaigns today: Serbia are about to kick off against Ghana and later on Germany take on Australia.

Let’s Not Kid Ourselves…

It could have been better: it could have been a lot, lot worse. Robert Green knew he made a mistake but he more than made up for it with the save from Jozy Altidore in the second half, so there’s no reason for the red tops to go mental on Sunday morning, even though they will.

If I’d been able to publish a preview before the game, it would have been along these lines: do not underestimate the United States, this one of the first round games that is likely to be far closer than most people think and that it’s highly likely that the USA will score. If you would have agreed with those sentences, keep reading the blog. If you are one of the flag toting dreamers who think England only had to book into the hotel and hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the bedroom doorknob and tick the continental breakfast option to win the World Cup, then you probably need to read something else.

England can still win the World Cup; if England want to win the World Cup then a victory over Algeria on Friday is vital. You know that and the team know that; we’ve been in far worse positions before.

Ferdinand Out, Dawson In…

I’d originally meant to publish this article on Wednesday: although I began it I was unable to get it finished due to a family emergency. Interesting looking back on what I’d written though, so here it is:

‘Nothing more need be said about the Japan game at the weekend. So here’s some very quick thoughts about the final squad that I scribbled at my desk this afternoon:

David James

Got relegated with Pompey, still a bit mistake prone. Last World Cup as a player, next one will be as a pundit.

Robert Green

Hammers got away with being poor last season, like David James he got a lot of practice last season.

Joe Hart

The future. Also takes penalties.

Glen Johnson

Sort of our version of Roberto Carlos.

Stephen ‘not Neil’ Warnock

Wouldn’t expect him to feature much but provides strength in depth.

Rio Ferdinand

You know that Nike advert everyone loves that’s got a Simpson’s version of Ronaldo in it? Should have been Rio. Needs to remember he’s in a tournament, not just a few friendlies.

John Terry

Shouty man. About time we had a defender sent off in the knock out round.

Jamie Carragher

Unexpected selection but should do well.

Matt Upson

Might make an appearance in the 3rd/4th place game. See Tony Dorigo in 1990.

Ledley King

Doesn’t seem that long ago that everyone was saying wouldn’t it be great if he was fit, he’d be a shoo in etc. Will be useful if Rio Ferdinand switches off at any point.

Ashley Cole

Defines ‘unsettled’; hope he doesn’t carry any baggage into the finals. Most likely to be the first to get picked on if everything starts going wrong.’

The midfielders and strikers will be posted soon, but yesterday’s news that Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of the tournament after being injured during training may not be as worrying as it first appears. Steven Gerrard will take over as captain and Michael Dawson has replaced Ferdinand in the final 23.

On Wednesday I wrote that  ‘we shouldn’t really doubt the fire in his (Gerrard’s) belly, but recently he seems to have mistaken effort for quality – and he can’t do that in the World Cup’. This refers primarily to a reasonable season for a mediocre Liverpool team and I’m sure that he’ll do a fine job replacing Rio. My thoughts on Michael Dawson are that I’m sure he’s got a really promising international career ahead of him, but that on reflection Capello was right to leave him out of the initial selection because Dawson needs another good season with Spurs (especially in the Champions League) before he can be considered a regular. I would expect Dawson to benefit enormously from the experience but would be surprised to see him play.

Before anyone starts panicking about Rio, it’s worth remembering that he played the second fewest league games of his career last season due to a groin injury: I’ve got to be honest and say that I’d rather he was ruled out sooner rather than later as I wasn’t entirely convinced that his fitness was all that it should be. Not only that, we’re not in the same position as Germany are with Michael Ballack, Nigeria are with Jon Obi Mikel and Michael Essien and Ivory Coast may be with Didier Drogba (and yes, they are all Chelsea players); Rio is an important member of the squad, but his replacements are just as good and - unlike the other nations I’ve just mentioned - our chances will not be diminished due to his injury.

A Win’s A Win…

…even if it wasn’t particularly convincing. A well taken goal from Ledley King, a rubbish handball offside one from Peter Crouch (which we should try again during the knockout latter stages of the tournament) and an absolute beauty from Glen Johnson gave England an ultimately flattering 3-1 win over a Mexican team who had a number of first class chances (23 shots on goal, nine on target to our eight attempts, five on target) throughout the game. If last night’s opponents play that well in the finals, France, New Zealand and Uruguay will have to watch out.

To be brutally honest, there were times when we were outplayed: King’s goal came against the run of play and the Mexican goal just before half time was a result of defending at a set piece that would have embarrassed a team of under elevens.

Having said all that…this is exactly what friendlies are for and not playing particularly well and winning is far, far better than being the best team in the world and losing. I have no doubt that the performance against Japan will better: to put yesterday’s result in perspective, Portugal drew 0-0 with the Cape Verde Islands, which is about the same as England drawing with Gibraltar.

Oh and Argentina beat Canada 5-0. I can’t remember if I’ve written it before, but there’s always one team that scrapes in after a rubbish qualification campaign and then suddenly becomes a major threat. Our evil twins may be that team: they’re fourth favourites to win the whole thing at about 7/1.

BTW, techology hates me. I was happily twittering away last night and my laptop fan decided it didn’t want to play. Twice.

Now is a good time to find out the latest world cup odds and find out more on the teams we will be facing!

Mexico Preview

England play their last game at Wembley before leaving for the World Cup Finals against a Mexican side that most of us will next see playing the hosts in the opening game of the tournament.

This will be the first time we’ve played ‘El Tri’ since 2001 (a 4-0 win at Pride Park in Derby if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me) and the Mexicans don’t have a good record in England: we’ve won all four games played here and they have yet to score. Despite that, we actually have quite a lot in common with them: until about half way through the qualifying campaign they were managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson and in the last four tournaments they have qualified from their group only to be unable to get past the second round. So…umm… actually quite a lot in common then.

It used to be quite rare for Mexicans to play abroad (Hugo Sanchez is the only name that springs to mind) but that’s changed. The provisional squad named by Javier Aguirre contained ten players who play their club football in Europe: captain Rafael Marquez and midfielder Jonathan Dos Santos play for Barcelona, defenders Francisco Rodriguez and Carlos Salcido (five yellow cards and a sending off in qualifying) are team mates at PSV Eindhoven and strikers Guillermo Franco and Carlos Vela play in this country for West Ham and Arsenal respectively.  However, the most intriguing Mexican prospect for years will probably be playing at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool next season: Javier Hernandez (who will only be 22 on 1^st June) joined Manchester United recently and is arguably the best striker to have emerged from the country since Sanchez. I’ve not seen him play, but if I was Dimitar Berbatov I’d be on the phone to my agent if Hernandez starts banging them in during the tournament.

Hernandez is more of a long term goalscoring prospect as Mexico don’t really have a dominant striker – the apparently ageless Cuauhtemoc Blanco is 37, neither Franco nor Vela have really done the business at international level and Nery Castillo wasn’t even named in the provisional squad. The short term solution appears to be Alberto Medina, who didn’t play at all in the qualifiers but has scored in two of Mexico’s last three friendlies including the 1-0 win over Chile last Sunday.

I’ll go for an England win, but if we stop the Mexicans from scoring then I think we can look forward to both the Japan friendly and the first game of the finals against the USA with a lot of confidence. Another point to remember is that the Mexicans are tight defensively and have a decent track record in the World Cup – it would not be a huge surprise if they beat South Africa in the opening game – and so we may have to be patient. And no booing Jamie Carragher either.

In other news, Gary Linekerdecided to leave The D**ly M**l as a football columnist this week…Diego Maradona ran a journalist over (as far as we know it wasn’t one from the Mail)…Michael Ballack and Lassana Diarra won’t be playing in the tournament, which is a shame as I really wanted to use ‘Ballack’s Out’, ‘Never Mind The Ballacks’ or ‘What A Load Of Old Ballacks’ as article titles. It’s also a shame that we won’t be treated to a French player running around with ‘Lass’ on the back of his shirt, but you can’t have everything can you ;-)

Calling ALL Fans Who Support The 2018 Bid

A very sincere thank you from Jerry and myself to everyone who read and commented on the post that appeared here on Sunday morning about the atrocious piece of so called ‘journalism’ that appeared in the Mail On Sunday at the weekend; I’ve spent most of the day at work getting angrier and angrier about this and trying to work out what to do next, so I’d like to thank the person who added the comment from http://toque.co.uk/ for giving all of us a potential outlet for our…ummm…’dismay’: the Boycott The Mail: England Fans United Facebook group can be found here; the Rise Like Lions website (which is associated with the FB group) is here.

There’s also another Facebook group here. If anyone can point us in the direction of any more fan groups, online petitions and such then we’ll be pleased to contribute, pass on any details we get and generally join in; the more the merrier after all!

As fans we’ll all be watching and hoping that the England team can become World Champions this summer: some of us may be lucky enough to be in South Africa in person. As fans we were all hoping that in eight years time we would not have to travel so far. Now hose hopes have been damaged but not destroyed so as fans we need to show the Daily Mail how angry we are but we also need to show the various decision makers exactly how much we want the World Cup in England in 2018.

So instead of finishing off by posting Terry Venables pretending to be Elvis or an advert for a Danish brewery featuring an ex-Scunthorpe United player dressed in a suit of armour…over to Sir Laurence Olivier and William Shakespeare.

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