WILL England beat Group C leaders Slovenia on Wednesday? On paper, they should do it comfortably but going by their recent form, hell no- they are packing their Louis Vuitton bags and going home. Touted as tournament favourites, England were expected to ease through the Group unscathed. However, things have not gone as planned. When Robert Green ‘gifted’ the United States a goal in England’s opener, the English media concentrated on the Keeper’s howler rather than blame the whole team for a lacklustre performance. Thereafter, Steven Gerard and his colleagues promised a top notch performance against Algeria-an African team that went the distance to secure a World Cup ticket and the fans were hooked, thinking that finally they were going to see the mighty three lions rip apart the desert foxes of Algeria. But alas, only lack of potent striking power from Algeria saved Fabio Capello’s men from further blushes. English tabloid, The Sun’s leading football writer Shaun Curtis said in his column, “Remember when we used to give that useless Swede so much stick? You know the fella, Sven Goran Eriksson, who could only get England to three quarter-finals. We owe him a very big apology. In fact, Eriksson’s reign is turning out to be the golden era in the last 40 years of English football history.” I couldn’t agree more.
