England v. Germany - the magic of ‘66 and all that…

By Oliver Sparrow, writing from London

As the England v. Slovenia game drew to a close after ninety minutes of painful tension there was a brief explosion of delirium and relief – for about five seconds. Then the news came through of Landon Donovan’s dramatic late winner against Algeria and the slow realisation set in that England were going to have to play their self-imposed old foes and enemies, Germany.

If Rooney or Defoe had put away their chances (which you would expect them to do every single time if they were in their Premier League club shirts), then England wouldn’t have been in this situation. Sure, it was brilliant to be through to the next round after the second-game jitters against Algeria, but all they had to do was score one more goal in a game that they largely dominated and they would have had a far less scary sounding second-round fixture against Ghana. We wouldn’t even have to mention the war if we were playing them…