Vuvuzelas aside......

I probably shouldn't be blogging about football, for all kinds of reasons. Whatever to that. 

I've just watched the England/US match and, like everyone, my thoughts are focused on Rob Green, our goalkeeper.  (I'm saying "our" because today I'm English.  Tomorrow I'll be Australian, and if Australia and England both do as well as I want them to they will have to face each other at some stage, which will probably make me spontaneously combust with confusion.  But let's not worry about that until it happens.)

Rob Green, as you probably know, let in a goal just before half time.  You may also know (unless you were watching in HD, apparently)  that we had scored very early on, so the miss brought the score to a level 1-1.  As misses go, this was a particularly bad howler.  You probably knew that too.

What you probably also knew, but *might* have forgotten by now, is that then, half way through the second half, he saved a goal. It was a pretty good save, as far as I could tell.  Also according to the commentators, who I assume know more about these things than I do. 

The match ended up in a 1-1 draw.  Not a great result for England, but not as bad, by definition, as a loss would have been.  I'm no expert, but as I see it,  Rob Green did two key things tonight: just before half time he turned our lead into a draw, which was bad, but then, part way through the second half he stopped our draw turning into a loss, which was good.

Ignoring, for a moment, the unknown qualities of whoever would have replaced him, let's imagine Rob Green hadn't been there. In the first half, we would have been ahead 1-0, but then the US would have scored that goal  in the second half and the game would have finished EXACTLY THEY WAY IT FINISHED TONIGHT.  A 1-1 draw. 

Like I say, I'm no expert.  But I bet everyone forgets this tomorrow, and blames poor old Rob Green for the fact we didn't win.  I say, for what it's worth, let's big him up a bit.  After all, he also stopped the game turning into a 1-2 loss.