Come In Agent Green Your Cover Is Blown
Did you know that the CIA has undercover operatives spying in Britain, despite the so called special relationship between the two countries and the fact we were the only ones stupid enough to ally ourselves with them in the illegal invasion of Iraq?
Well they do. In fact, America has operatives and agents working in virtually every country in the world, regardless of whether they are perceived as friendly or not. Then again, in the interests of balanced reporting I should also point out that so do we!
Every now and again these operatives blow their cover and it causes a bit of a furore so expect Robert Green to return to his American paymasters as soon as the World Cup finishes.
He might even get a Purple Heart or whatever they call then for outstanding bravery in the service of the stars and stripes! I mean, come on, you can't do something so blatantly against the national interest and not expect people to get suspicious Rob.
And he plays for West Ham, the team US president Barrack Obama supposedly supports given he once walked past the ground or something when he was merely a US senator - actually he attended a game in 2003 - which raises all sorts of suspicions. Doesn't it? Hmmmm, hmmm!?
I'm joking, of course. Well I might not be but I've no desire to be snatched by a CIA hit squad in the middle of the night and flown to Afghanistan to be water boarded - simulated drowning in order to extract information from a suspected terrorist - so let's move back to football.
If you take CIA operative, sorry blunder keeper, Robert Green out of the equation, and possibly an utterly ineffective performance from Frank Lampard as well, England weren't actually that bad against the USA.
No seriously. Put it this way, they played a lot better against the Yanks - ranked 14th in the world by Fifa, just six places below England who are 8th - than they did in any of the group games in Germany four years ago.
They had more than enough chances to win it, without ever getting out of third gear, and if it wasn't for Green tossing the ball into his own net, I mean deflecting it in, they would have won comfortably.
It wasn't the best performance and it wasn't the best start to a World Cup campaign, but despite all the injury problems in defence, I'm far more optimistic about their chances than I was last time after the dreadful 1-0 win over Paraguay and the equally uninspiring 2-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago.
England have got their hardest group game out of the way first and I'm going to confidently predict they will top their group and go on to reach the semi-finals for the first time in 20 years.
Wayne Rooney can only get better - he was very poor last Saturday - Gareth Barry's return will give Steven Gerrard and, I hate to say it, Lampard the chance to roam forward with more freedom and surely Joe Cole will replace the headless chicken Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Alright, so it was annoying we couldn't beat the Americans at a sport they have been getting steadily better at for more than two decades now - this is their sixth consecutive World Cup Finals - but in 1966 we opened with a goalless draw to Uruguay and in 1990 we drew 1-1 with the Republic of Ireland in our opening game.
In fact, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and put £10 on England to win it, with a covering bet on Holland, just to be safe. I'm not daft!
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Luke Edwards - is Chief Sports Writer of The Journal and uses his blog to give a unique and entertaining insight into events at Newcastle United and Sunderland.
Certainly left me wondering why Steve Harper wasn't one of the 3 keepers taken to SA. If David James has fallen out with Baldini, and won't be picked, what is he doing there?