Oh, England (or I blame the space aliens)

Arghhhhhhhh!!

England tied v. Sweden 2-2. Another brilliant goal by Gerrard - but some poor defending at the end let us down. I was really looking forward to seeing England smash Sweden.

Looks like maybe the space aliens were right. Sort of. I can't believe I'm doing this - but let's look at the space alien football punditry versus the facts:

Speaking through former police worker Stephany Cohen, of Lancaster Close, Bromley, the Grays say England will reach the quarter finals.

Entirely likely.

And she says they will definitely not make it to the final, which she believes will probably be won by Brazil.

Brazil are good this time, but not great. Who ate all the pies? Ronaldo.

The aliens, from the planet Sirrus D, have also scuppered hopes Wayne Rooney will be fit enough. Apparently his metatarsal fracture will not heal in time for any games and he should be replaced by Jermain Defoe.

Ha ha, Sirrian Ds - it was only an injury of the soft metatarsal (whatever that means). Wayne's playing! And Defoe went home, maybe that was Sven's cunning plan to thwart the aliens, 'cause heaven only knows why else he kept the lineup he did (yes, I'm talking about Theo Walcott). But I guess I can grant the space aliens some slack. Rooney hasn't been up to form, yet.

And the spiritual healer also says Michael Owen is not 100 per cent fit but will still play in the tournament.

Umm... no, you're right, Michael Owen is not 100 per cent fit - and with that knee buckling incident in the first minute, we may not see him again.

She added: "Their success should read win against Paraguay, beat Trinidad and Tobago and draw with Sweden.

Eerily, acurately prescient. Still - England win their group and play Ecuador on Sunday.

I watched a little bit of the Ecuador v Germany game, which was mucho yawn-worthy (I was supposed to be working from home, turned on the tv, and actually kept working through the game.) However it clearly indicated that we did NOT want to play Germany in the first game of knock-out stage. I couldn't believe that it was the same Ecuador side that I'd seen play so snappily and naturally before. Turns out it wasn't - five of their starting players were rested this game and the coach apparently just decided to take the dive against Deutschland in preparation for the knockout stages.

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Thanks to Rex L Camino for the original space alien tip.