Day 2, Saturday 12th June.
First snigger of the day was provided when Alice came in to feign interest for a bit. Seeing SKO v GRE on the screen, she enquired; ‘Who’s playing in this one then..? Greece and… Sko…Skolenia? No… Skotland? No… South Korea!’, finally twigging when she saw a close-up of Lee Jung-Soo. Skolenia indeed.
First televisual World Cup image of the day was a chubby mascot waiting in the tunnel while fiddling around with his scrag-end. He must’ve picked it up from watching the professionals at it.
Greece, it quickly transpired, were awful. Clueless and disorganised in defence, with the odd unforgivable lapse of concentration thrown in for good measure, while elsewhere on the pitch, they were just gawping gormlessly at the team-mate who was about to receive the ball, to see if they had any idea what to do with it. No cohesion, no ideas, no composure, no nowt.
Good on the Koreans for taking advantage. The second goal was a marvellous finish but came from a pub side-standard defensive error and Greece’s best player, Gekas, really did look like a pub player, with his podgy frame, wayward shooting and heavily-strapped knee niggle.
I’ve got a bet on Argentina to win it and they did nothing to make me change my mind against Nigeria. Not a great deal to vindicate my hunch either, to be honest, but it was the best game so far (or the lesser of five evils) and, despite the lack of goals, there were plenty of chances. Messi wasn’t on fire but showed enough to convince you he’s poised, like a coiled spring, ready to come to life and make this World Cup his own when the nitty-gritty kicks in. The way he’s been playing for the last few years would suggest he’s a better chance of winning it almost single-handedly as Maradona had in ’86. Watch this space. Or rather watch Maradona. There really should be a MaradonaCam option, it’s so entertaining to watch his reactions. Even more so now, with his proud revolutionary beard. I know it’s practically our birthright to hate Argentina and Maradona especially but I just can’t. He was a genius footballer, he’s as mad as a box of frogs and you’ve got to admire his passion, his bluntness and just his magnetic allure, his charisma. I want to know what he’s doing now, what he said and how he behaved in his last press conference. And he could be the magic ingredient Argentina need when developing a siege mentality and a burning will to win when it matters.
And so to England… Should we really have expected anything other than a hollow disappointing feeling and another disheartening display. Great early goal, Heskey winning over his doubters with a fine ball into Stevie G, la, but the way we sat back and treaded water after that was disappointing. As was Robbish Green’s lousy error, if only because that infernal goalkeeping position has been the one area we might not be considered strong in and to have the reasons why humiliatingly stripped bare so early on in the tournament was a right sickener. What would we give now for a David Seaman/Nigel Martyn or Ray Clemence/Peter Shilton selection conundrum? I hoped it wouldn’t be an issue, recalling that the likes of Brazil and Argentina have won World Cups with unremarkable goalies but there’s just a decent keeper famine going on in England at the moment. I’d have taken, and probably played Paul Robinson instead of James but would rather have seen Hart play than Green. Hart’s been quality all season and should’ve been picked on form, as Capello apparently endeavours to. Whoever played in goal, there can be no excuse for that mistake. Green said ‘It’s hit the outside of one of my thumbs’. Why?! Can he not just stop it with his palms or fingers? He could’ve even stopped it with his foot, it was rolling that slowly. Useless bastard. Nobody made more errors that led directly to goals last season in the Premier League than Robert Green. Is this really the best we’ve got? Chris Kirkland should get the nod ahead of this goon.
Still, not a disaster. I expected this game to be the trickiest of the three, we haven’t lost it and really should’ve won it, blunder aside, Heskey shoulda made it safe. The New York Post certainly seemed happy with a point…!

Not many stand-out performances from our so-called big guns and, worryingly, the centre halves are dropping like flies but no reason to worry just yet. Save that for Friday night.