WORST PERFORMANCE EVER?

Well what can I say about Algeria? Well the Three Lions have no history against them whatsoever for starters. As for generics, well they've been playing football since 1957(back then Algeria was still a French colony). Since then they've qualified for the World Cup twice prior to now(second time was in 1986), have never progressed past the knockout stages but still featured on an early 90s World Cup game for the Sega Game Gear! Their best achievement in football so far was winning the 1990 African Cup of Nations. Since then well they've been the forgotten team of Africa for most of the last 20 years and looked comatose even within Africa only recently.

In theory they were one of the more straightforward sides in the group, after all, they couldn't even beat Slovenia. Having said that, England weren't in the best of positions themselves. Failing to beat the Yanks can't have been what any England fans had in mind and that left us facing this World Cup Group C match at Green Point Stadium with our backs against the wall. One way or another, we needed a win and again, Algeria looked doable. Lineup wise well it was James in goal, Terry and Carragher in central defence, Lampard and Barry in centre mid, Gerrard left mid. An interesting lineup but hopefully one that would do the business for us.

However, England's performance turned out to be inexplicably messy from the start with Algeria managing to soak us up and then give us a few headaches of their own. Having said that they did get away with a lot of shirt pulling but to be honest, that shouldn't have mattered. Lampard had a reasonable chance midway through the half but other than that well...back passes and innaccurate passes ahoy, people may accuse us English fans of impatience but on nights like that who can blame us. Stil, there was a second half to come, surely Fabio would come up with something that would see us through against this relatively weak African side.

Well if he did then it must have gone in one ear and out the other because if anything the Algerians improved in the 2nd half and Karim Ziani was allowed too much of the play and at this point people really started to get unhappy. Eventually England started to get their act together and hammer the Algeria goal but something was missing. How on Earth could England have lost their edge so blatently in a World Cup campaign? I suppose we didn't lose the game but no circumstances should we have been satisfied with not losing this match. Cue boos. Cue Rooney ranting at boos. With all due respect Wayne, what else did you expect after the team's display?

Elsewhere, the USA faced Slovenia at Ellis Park. The Slovenians opened the scoring thanks to Valter Birsa and then, catching the Yanks on an off day, went on to go two up thanks to Zlatan Ljubijankic, leaving Bob Bradley with a lot of work to do. The US stepped it up in the 2nd half though with Landon Donovan pulling a goal back and Michael Bradley levelling the score before the Yanks hit the net a third time only for it to be ruled offside. That leaves England 3rd in Group C, level on points and goal difference with the 2nd placed USA but having scored two goals less. Bottom line, the Three Lions are catching an early flight home if they don't sort things out.

In Group D, Serbia beat Germany 1-0 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. A not-so-smart ref sent the Germans down to ten men in the first half and the Serbs got their goal soon after, still, not what the Germans had planned for. Ghana then drew 1-1 with Australia in the Royal Bafokeng Stadium, the Aussies opening the scoring before Ghana grabbed a pen but then for the second hame in a row the Aussies finished the match with ten men. Those results leave Germany top of the group still with 2nd placed Ghana just one point behind them. Serbia are in third place, level on points with Ghana but the Black Stars have a +3 goal difference advantage.

So, how would the knockout stages look now?

Uruguay(beat South Africa 3-0) vs South Korea(surviving a 4-1 defeat to Argentina)

Argentina vs Mexico(beat France 2-0)

Slovenia vs Germany

Ghana vs USA

Netherlands(beat Japan 1-0) vs Italy/New Zealand(the teams drew 1-1 with each other)

Paraguay(beat Slovakia 2-0) vs Japan

Brazil(beat Ivory Coast 3-1) vs Spain(beat Honduras 2-0)

Chile(beat Switzerland 2-0) vs Portugal(beat North Korea 7-0)

Summary of World Cup after two rounds of group matches? Slightly wierd but not as bad as '02.

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