Englands World Cup finally opens

South Africa opened the World Cup with a great goal; England opened theirs with an utterly unbelievable goalkeeping blunder. It was a widely held belief among England fans that the keeper was not one of the team’s strengths, and so it’s proven. Green gave the US their goal with an unforced error, and England were never able to get back into the game.

It was not a classic England performance, the team has a deserved reputation for starting slowly in big tournaments. Maintaining tradition, todays outing was particularly unmemorable.

The goal came down to an elementary mistake by Rob Green on a soft shot by Clint Dempsey. Green holds onto that 999 times out of a 1000, why did it have to be today? Green was not helped by England playing back, perhaps defending too deep and allowing the US team space to play further up the field

In the plus column Rob Green did have a great reflex save in the second half turning Altidores close range shot onto the post, but post match will inevitable focus on the mishandling of what was more of a back pass than a well struck shot on goal.

For all the questions around Emile Heskeys selection on the strength of three Premier League goals last season, he was the provider with a well-placed pass into the path of Gerrard. The England captain finished well slotting the ball past Howard. Five minutes in and England were 1-0 up.

Sadly this is England in their opening game of the world cup. Following tradition, the team seldom does things the easy way from the beginning. All the hard work was undone five minutes before half time by a goalkeeping screw-up we will be talking about for years to come.

England was defending deeply and a lot of the play was taking place in England’s half of the field. While the US were not getting too much penetration, nor were England for much of the game. Rooney was noticeable for his lack of impact, there seemed to be something of a disconnect between the midfield pairing of Gerrard and Lampart and the front two.

Milner was replaced early. Ledley King did not start the second half and will be out of the Algeria game. Capello took a couple of risks in the team, one of which was King, and it’s not paid off so far.

England had chances, but as we got further into the second half there was a growing feeling that it was just not going to be England’s night. There were chances on goal, but they seemed to be straight at Howard causing him no real issues.

It was not a total disaster for England and some perspective is needed. It was only the opening game and 4 or 5 points are all that’s needed to go through to the second round. England did not play consistently well; against a well-drilled side like the US it was not good enough. Friday it’s Algeria, drop points there and we’ve a problem. I’d like to see a comfortable win, over the course of the tournament luck evens out, I think England is owed a little by the football gods after today, I hope they had a good laugh and England learned a lesson or two. We’ll find out more on Friday.