Some teams arrive at the World Cup as the finished product. They play well from the beginning and never let up. In 2002 Brazil won all three of their group games handily and never looked back.

Often though a team will use the group stages to prepare themselves for the knockout rounds. They have the quality to get past the lower level teams in their group, but need fine tuning if they are to succeed later against stronger teams.

In 1994, Italy barely made it out of their group, finishing third and surviving solely on goal differential. They ended up in the final. In Italia 90, Argentina also finished third in their group with an identical 1-1-1 record before playing in the final.

England fans will be hoping that their poor form will have the same results (except for maybe actually winning the final). They clearly have work to do, but there are signs that things could and should be looking up.

In yesterday’s 2-0 defeat of Trinidad & Tobago, Wayne Rooney’s appearance gave an immediate spark to a team that had previously seemed lost and he will almost certainly start from now on. Though Peter Crouch missed several easy chances, he was at least in a position to put the ball in the net and he did recover to put his team ahead.

The decision of coach Sven Goran Erikkson change to a 3-5-2 formation with David Beckham playing deeper and more central showed that maybe he is willing to take a few chances which also bodes well for England. And the addition of Aaron Lennon brought pace down the right side which England haven’t taken advantage of yet.

Its up to Sven to use the tools he has at his disposal, but if he does, England will most certainly improve as the tournament goes on.

In the end, while not living up to their expectations as far as form, England still haven’t given up a goal, are top of their group and with the return of Rooney, finally healthy at all positions.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 8:18 am and is filed under World Cup 2006. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.