After 3 minutes of the England game it felt like we were on top. After 10 minutes we looked so in control I was hoping we would not embarrass Paraguay too much by putting half a dozen past them. At the end of the game we had a rare opening game victory but it just felt depressing: the second half took all the joy out of it.

Motson said that England have not scoed a second-half goal in a World Cup finals game since 1988. If that is true (I have not checked, but Motty is rarely wrong) then its a terrible statistic. Its amazing that we have managed to reach semi- and quarter-finals with only first-half goals.

I’m not an expert on football by a long way, but the ref for the England game seemed to be overly fussy. Did he really give a free kick because the goalkeeper held the ball for too long? I know there is a rule, but I have never seen it enforced before. I have seen goalies hold onto the ball for much longer without any trouble. The Paraguayan chap did not seem to be taking the piss – I think he was hard done-by.

Trinidad & Tobago certainly shook a few people up with the way they held Sweden to a draw. Sweden must have been thinking that getting to the next round was a formality before the game, now they won’t be too sure. Their next game is going to be interesting as Parguay will know they have a much better chance of going through now. Nice to see Shaka keeping a clean sheet – pity he didn’t do it more for West Ham during the year!

I have been saying that the Ivory Coast should not be dismissed too lightly and although they lost to Argentina they never looked like being a walkover and by the end Argentina were the ones making injury time substitutions and using other delaying tactics in an implicit admission that the Ivorians looked extremely threatening.

T&T holding Sweden, Costa Rica scoring against Germany (another ex-Hammer although the commentator only said Paulo “One-Shot” was an ex-Derby and Man City player) and Ivory Coast scoring against Argentina were nice underdog performances, but we are still waiting for the first major shock of the tournament. Maybe Ghana will beat Italy or Togo will beat France?