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| England Back In World Cup Action Against Algeria |
The British fans have been fretful over their team’s performance against the United States when, in reality, there’s no reason to be. There was certainly plenty of national pride at stake in England’s game against their former ‘breakaway colony’, but they’re not the only highly regarded team that has settled for a draw in their opening game--Mexico, Italy, Portugal, Ivory Coast and France did as well. Coming into the World Cup, both the England and US knew that after this matchup their Group C pairings would be very favorable for both to advance to the knockout stage. Historically, the first game of the World Cup has been a harbinger of a team’s chances to advance to the knockout stage. A win is obviously the best option, and 86% of first game winners have gone on to advance to the knockout stage. Teams that played to a first game draw have gone though 58% of the time. Good teams often take at least one game to get into their best competitive form, and as a result approach the first game with a strategy of ‘not losing’ rather than going all out for the win. England definitely has some problems on the defensive end, not the least of which is Green’s status as starting keeper following his opening game gaffe. They lost team captain Rio Ferdinand to injury before the tournament began, and will now be without his replacement as Ledley King will miss up to three weeks with a groin injury. Coach Fabio Capello will likely call on Jamie Carragher to join Chelsea’s John Terry in the defensive ranks. Against Algeria, however, none of this is likely to matter. They’re a team with a desperate lack of offensive playmakers—a liability that was evident in their opening game loss to Slovenia. Algeria isn’t bad defensively but they’re simply a team that you can’t count on to score goals. For all of their issues on the defensive end, England definitely has playmakers that can put the ball in the net. Look for England to get three points here with a much needed victory. The ‘Three Lions’ often show a tendency to ‘play down’ to the level of their opposition so it probably won’t be a blowout, but with Algeria’s offensive woes it should be comfortable. A team can’t win if they can’t score. Also, this should be yet another game playing UNDER the total with England winning by a 1-0 or 2-0 final score. 
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England should have won their opening game against the United States, but had to settle for a draw due to the now famous miscue by goalkeeper Robert Green. Green’s blunder has been dubbed ‘The Hand of Clod’ by the always quick witted UK media, a reference to Diego Maradona’s legendary ‘Hand of God’ goal for Argentina against England in the 1986 World Cup. All of the hoopla over Green’s ‘soft’ goal has obscured the fact that England played pretty well against a highly underrated US side. At the time, there was some concern about their relative lack of offense in the game but that doesn’t look like much of an issue in context of what has been to date the lowest scoring World Cup tournament in history.
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