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Fate has a habit of bringing teams together in the World Cup that make any fan salivate in anticipation, and none more so than a meeting between England and Germany. Our two countries have a long history in professional tournaments and both teams have taken plenty of individual positives from clashes over the years, but it’s fair to say Germany have probably done slightly better against us than we have against them, which makes the game on Sunday even more interesting.

So far the World Cup of 2010 hasn't exactly been a predictable tournament, the teams we expected to shine have been at best poor and the teams we didn't give a hope of getting far have risen to the challenge to provide some of the best football of the tournament so far. The World Champions, Italy were sent packing yesterday with a 3-2 defeat against Slovakia, a game that failed to fire the imagination of any fan until the final 20 minutes when both sides suddenly realised the severity of being beaten – a goal fest then ensued with Slovakia scoring in the 73rd minute, Italy in the 81st, Slovakia bringing one back in the 89th before Italy scored again in the 92nd minute, and if it wasn't for Robert Vittek's goal for Slovakia early in the game, Italy may have held some hope of progressing to the final sixteen, but as it stood the World Cup holders were crushed in the knockout stages – only the 3rd time in the tournaments history that the champions have failed to progress beyond the knockout stage.

France met a similar fate with whisperings of unrest between manager and players almost from the start of the tournament, with those disagreements being very publicly exposed during the training session last week when French players protesting at striker Nicolas Anelka being sent home for voicing his disgust at Manager Domenech during France's 2-0 defeat against Mexico on June 17th, decided they would not train and walked out of the ground in what can only be described as a players revolt and an unofficial strike. When they did take on their next opponent South Africa in the Free State Stadium on June 22nd, the humiliation could not have been greater – France lost the match two goals to one and with it their reputation at being sent out of the tournament during the knockout stage.

Other games have proved just as unpredictable over the course of the last three weeks and this afternoons thriller between Brazil and Portugal was yet another that failed to live up to expectations, it was at best very dull and the 0:0 final score line reflected a very uneventful ninety-minutes. Germany’s best result so far was against Australia on June 13th with a 4-0 victory, but that game aside I don’t think it’s unfair to describe this German team as very mediocre. It is their country’s youngest team for 70 years and with that you would expect flashes of brilliance combining pace with tempo but I have to say I’ve seen none of that spark in recent games from this German side – England on the other hand have a raft of experience and solid fall backs at their disposal, I accept our first game against the USA was average while the second game against Algeria was embarrassing, but England have always been a slow burner – we literally find our feet as the tournament progresses and the meeting against Slovenia was a more robust and solid team effort. Be in no doubt these are games we really should have won comfortably though but that aside, if England can bring that same pace and tempo to the game on Sunday against Germany, I am quietly confident of a comfortable win against the Germans – I really do believe we are the better team, the question is do the England players? I’m not expecting goals galore on Sunday, I think both teams will defend well but I’m anticipating a 2-1 victory for England. We can win this game if our hearts are in it.

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