BLOEMFONTEIN // England will rage at the injustice and Germany will see karmic comeback for Geoff Hurst's controversial goal in 1966, but the fact that this was a game England lost by playing atrociously for 35 minutes and not much better for the rest. Given how poor England were, and how emphatically Germany went on to win, it seems bizarre to speak of the game turning on a linesman's decision, but that is certainly the way it will be perceived, perhaps even the way it was.
Having gone 2-0 down, England had pulled one back in the 38th minute when, 54 seconds later, Frank Lampard lobbed a volley over Manuel Neuer, the German goalkeeper. The ball struck the bar and bounced down, palpably over the line. But as England's players and fans celebrated, Maurico Espinosa, the Uruguayan linesman, kept his flag down, and play continued. It was a bewilderingly bad decision, but it was nowhere near as bad as England had been until two minutes earlier.
"The 2-2?" a furious Fabio Capello asked. "It's incredible in a period of technology that we can play with five referees who cannot see whether it is a goal or not. "The mistake of the linesman changed the game because after that Germany could play on the counter-attack." Had England levelled then, who knows what might have been; certainly they wouldn't, as they ended up doing, have conceded twice on the break by overcommitting in the second half.
Then again, given Germany's general superiority, it would be perverse in the aftermath of England's worst World Cup defeat to imply that an England victory would have been inevitable had the goal been given. "We clearly controlled the game until England's goal, then there was a short critical phase," Joachim Loew, the Germany coach, said. "What I saw on the television, this ball was behind the line, it must have been given as a goal."
For 35 minutes, England were at their most witless, playing at a soporific tempo, passing into cul-de-sacs. So much is familiar; what was not, was the pathetic way in which they conceded the opener. Neuer sent a goal-kick downfield, everybody stood and watched, and Miroslav Klose outmuscled Matthew Upson to stab a finish past David James. This was atrocious, sub-schoolboy defending, and any sympathy for England must be tempered by the knowledge of their complicity in creating the mountain they later had to climb.
With Mesut Ozil far too often afforded space, Germany seemed capable of picking England apart at will. Thomas Muller set up Lukas Podolski, who was denied by the feet of James, but the second arrived soon enough; Ozil, Klose and Muller combining to find Podolski, who drilled a low shot back across goal and under the body of James. Shame, perhaps, enlivened England, who suddenly found a bite and an urgency that had been wholly absent. A quickly taken corner enabled Steven Gerrard to cross for Upson to pull one back, and when Lampard's goal was ruled out it seemed the comeback was on, particularly when the midfielder then thumped a free-kick against the bar early in the second half.
"We played a very bad first 20 minutes, but after that we matched the speed of Germany," Capello said. "I think we scored two goals. At that moment I thought Germany suffered a lot, but after 3-1 we didn't play, and they scored the third and the fourth on the counter-attack." It was another Lampard free-kick after 68 minutes that ended up presenting Germany with a third. As the ball rebounded from the wall, Germany broke. The ball was worked to Muller, and he hammered a finish through James.
Four minutes later, the game was over, Ozil countering and squaring for Muller to slam in his second in the space of three minutes. England's sense of grievance is partly justified, and the linesman's error will join the list of perceived injustices that comprises their past 40 years of history in World Cups, but the problems run deeper than that. It is hard to remember when England last did something in a World Cup that deserved good luck. The fact that England's players walked off dejected rather than furious told its own story.
Germany's young, exciting side meanwhile, so good at shaping their own destiny, keep rolling on. They face Argentina on Saturday in Cape Town. sports@thenational.ae
