2006 has turned out to be one of the most interesting Football World Cups in history. Australia have made it through for the first time in history, Brazil failed to score more than a single goal against Croatia (I’m always happy to see Brazil play poorly), and the USA were even close to beating Italy!England’s first match against Paraguay was disgraceful. The only goal we managed was not even our own but one that bounced off the head of the Paraguayan captain in the 3rd minute. In the remaining 87 minutes, we failed to score anything and so the score remained at full time, 1-0.Our second match against Trinidad and Tobago was slightly better. We created more opportunities, but failed to exploit them and missed direct shots such as Crouch’s half-arsed side bicycle kick and Owen’s wide shot that caused him to crumble to the floor. A near disaster occured when the ball was headed into the English goal only to be thwacked out at the last second by John Terry. Hats off to him for that. In the end we got there, though, with two last minute goals courtesy of Crouch and Gerrard. 2-0. Better than 1-0, but come on - we’re playing against a bloody island in the middle of the Caribbean whose entire population probably consists of their football team. I expected the pitch to be littered with their entrails after we were through with them.

Against Sweden, we dominated the first half with Joe Cole scoring an absolutely smashing goal from 35 yards curving towards the goal and helped into the corner by Swedish goalkeeper, Isaksson, who could only get his fingers to it. As for the second half, all I can say is that the Swedish coach must’ve given one hell of a pep talk in that changing room because everything fell to pieces. We could no longer defend properly, conceding corner after corner and gradually having our defence grinded by the Swedes until finally it gave way as Allback scored from a fatal corner shot. At this point, I was beginning to worry. A loss to Sweden and we would be facing Germany next - and no one wants to fight the dog in its own territory. But then a header from Gerrard had me convinced we would finally beat Sweden after 38 years. But we were denied that glory by Larsson who scored a goal in the 89th minute. The 89th minute?! He did it just to spite us… Bastard…

On the bright side, we’re the top of Group B with 2 wins and 1 draw, and we face Ecuador (not Germany) on Sunday.

On the not-so-bright-side, we have 2 poor wins and 1 draw, Owen is out of the tournament, and to put it bluntly, we’re heading home on Sunday if we suck as much as we did against Sweden in the second half.