USA 2 SLOVENIA 2 / ENGLAND 0 ALGERIA 0

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U.S. ties Slovenia, 2-2

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Probably a contender for game of the tournament for drama thus far, as the Yanks recalled the 'spirit of John Wayne', not my words but those of some hack whose core diet usually consists of baseball, gridiron and anything else but football.

In any case, Slovenia will be satisfied but not in the way someone feels after a degustation menu at The Flower Drum. More like a quick salt and pepper squid at Tho-Tho's; the toulouma has contents, but it could have been so much more.

Within a minute, the US should have been a player down after Clint Dempsey raised his elbow into the head of Radosavijevic, an identical foul that saw red for Daniele De Rossi v the USA in Germany 2006. That behind them, the Slovenians were good value for their 1-0 scoreline after a cracker from left foot wizard Birsa that left Tim Howard rooted to the spot. 2-0 up through Ljubijankic and Slovenia looked set for the round of 16. Two replies from Donovan and Bradley and a draw to leave the group still open.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/round=249722/match=300061463/index.html

Interestingly, the highlights package on fifa's website does not include the late disallowed goal by Edu that was hotly contested and later shown to be a questionable decision.

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ENGLAND 0 ALGERIA 0

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/round=249722/match=300061464/index.html

What more needs to be said about this exercise in turgidity? More could have been derived watching Mariah Carey reciting the poems of Edgar Allen-Poe with Amy Winehouse correcting her.

Group C after 2 games:

Team	MP	GF	GA	Pts
	SVN	2	3	2	4
	USA	2	3	3	2
	ENG	2	1	1	2
	ALG	2	0	1	1

The last game in the group sees ENG-SVN and USA-ALG. No dead rubbers here.

GP