Mullered: Germany 4-1 England 27/6/10

Germany line-up: Neuer, Lahm (c), Friedrich, Mertesacker, Boateng, Khedira, Schweinsteiger, Ozil (Kiessling, 83'), Muller (Gomez, 72') , Klose (Trochowski, 72'), Podolski
England line-up: James, Johnson (Wright-Phillips, 87'), Terry, Upson, A.Cole, Milner (J.Cole, 64'), Gerrard, Lampard, Barry, Rooney, Defoe (Heskey, 71')

Another World Cup, another poor showing and a right royal thrashing at the hands of Germany. England weren't good enough and poor in every part of the field and deserved to lose. Germany were on the front foot from the start with Ozil continuously opening up England's defence and both Podolski and Muller had great chances to put them level. England couldn't pass the ball or even defend well in the opening encounters of the first half. This lead to Germany's first goal on twenty minutes; Neuer providing a huge goal kick which found Miroslav Klose, he managed to muscle in behind both Terry and Upson before coolly finishing past James. Barry had the only shot by this time for England and that was hit straight at Neuer and Khedira found Klose at the other end who should have had his second and Germany's second but James managed to save. Just after the half hour mark Germany had doubled their lead with yet another defence splitting pass from Muller into the path of Podolski who looked to have taken too hard a touch but still managed to slot past James and England's exit was looking imminent. However England suddenly found how to play football and began to push Germany back and got one back in the 37th minute; Lampard played a short corner to Gerrard who crossed into the box to find Upson on hand to head past the flailing Neuer, who should have stayed on his line, and suddenly England had a chance of salvaging it. Lampard should have been celebrating an equaliser when his shot rattled the underside of the bar and bounced over the line before bouncing back into play, but the Uruguayan officials somehow managed to claim it wasn't a goal and Germany kept their lead.

With England having the momentum before half-time you would have thought they could have kept that in the second half but apart from Lampard hitting the crossbar early on, England were back to playing their early first half game and were duly punished. With England trying to look for that equaliser they left their already questionable defence rather bare and were caught on the equaliser twice. First Lampard hit a free-kick straight at the wall and Germany cleared to Ozil who could Terry for pace all week long and charged down the wing before squaring to Muller who tapped it into the empty net for game over. Surely after that someone would realise that Ozil was much too fast for the defence and get someone pacy from England to look after him? Well actually no as Germany countered again and Ozil was given the ball own the wing again and this time beat Barry for pace, which isn't difficult, and again he squared to Muller who again tapped it in, spelling a 4-1 defeat, the worst defeat in a World Cup for England and this was our best team since 1966! Hardly.