FIFA World Cup 2010 - Groups A-D decided, as Group E and F play their deciders today
In a dramatic turn of events yesterday, both England and the United States qualified from Group C to play in the last 16 of this years’ FIFA World Cup. A late goal by Landon Donovan of the United States in extra time gave them the win they were looking for and thus finishing on top of their group table after beating Algeria 1-0.
England with the help of Jermain Defoe won their game 1-0 against Slovenia after a tough game of soccer where Slovenia, although coming close to scoring multiple times, could just not get through the English defence and their new goal keeper.
Another blow to the Slovenians chances of getting through to the last 16 was the stoppage time goal by the United States as USA had won their match rather then drawing, Slovenia despite losing to England would have been well on their way to follow the English men into the next round, but Donovan’s goal crushed their hopes and left the Americans on top of the group since they had a better goal difference as opposed to England.
Coming back to the game, England yesterday finally looked the team that they are supposed to be. Defoe scored his second goal of the tournament only 23 minutes into the game and this raised the confidence and attitude of the English side as the team looked a little nervous earlier.
To their credit in a tournament where almost all of the star-studded teams have had to suffer with a host of problems, Fabio Capello’s team showed a lot of spirit and looked a touch different from their previous outings.
One might ask what sort of an incident could have triggered such a change in the last five days that helped England come back so well.
To start with we saw the team, as a whole, improving as they did not solely rely on Rooney and rightly so as Rooney continued with his disappointing form.
The two most recent additions to the side in the form of James Milner and Jermain Defoe seemed to pay off for the men in red as Fabio Capello and the whole of England still anticipate Rooney to find some form.
However, yesterday’s game proved that England may still progress beyond the last 16, provided they play as a unit, even if their star player does not arrive to the occasion.
Rob Green’s blunder against USA proved to be a blessing in disguise for the English team as they finally found an answer to their problems in David James who helped England hold onto their one-goal advantage yesterday.
As mentioned earlier the decision to play James Milner also proved to be an excellent move because it was Milner’s perfect cross which Jermain Defoe finished to score the winning goal for his team. Another great move on Fabio Capello’s part is that he finally dropped the towering Emile Heskey.
Last but certainly the most important aspect of England’s performance yesterday was that the English side played with zest and determination from the opening whistle. Thus, all the post-Algeria excuses about tired players proved to be gibberish.
As the shape of the last 16 emerges, FIFA yesterday also made an announcement that they will be releasing an extra 5,000 tickets for the World Cup knockout stage as after hosts South Africa and 1998 champions France were sent crashing out, tickets that had been reserved by fans would now stand available.
Thus for the Uruguay-South Korea match on Saturday 4,000 tickets are now available and another 1,000 are available for Sunday’s game between Argentina and Mexico.
Today Italy will take on Slovakia and New Zealand will play Paraguay to decide which teams go through from Group F while in group E Netherlands will play Cameroon as Japan take on Denmark.
Tags: