England 1-0 Ecuador

England qualifies for the World Cup quarter finals with a precise free-kick from captain David Beckham that earned them a scrappy 1-0 victory over Ecuador on Sunday.

In the 60th minute, Beckham delivered one of his trademark set-pieces from 35 metres which has a powerful swerve, leaving the Ecuador goalkeeper grasping for thin air. For the record, Beckham became England's first player to score in three World Cups. He was sick on the pitch during the second half and was subsequently substituted towards the end of the match.

After playing three World Cup matches already, England still seem to be lost at sea and cannot get their act together while other teams have found their rhythm and are slowly reaching their peak level.

Coach Sven continued with his cautious approach and played a 4-5-1 formation with Wayne Rooney as a lone striker and Michael Carrick made his England debut as a holding midfielder while Owen Hargreaves filled in the role of a right-back. With Michael Owen out of the finals with a knee injury, the game plan was to allow Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to get in behind Rooney and function as the second striker.

However, for the entire first half, Soccer Pundit did not see England creating any goalscoring opportunity and were lucky not to go in at the break a goal down. John Terry's poor headed interception after 11 minutes fell to Carlos Tenorio and the Ecuador striker was put in a one-to-one situation with keeper Paul Robinson. He hesitated for a second too long and his shot took a deflection off Ashley Cole and hit the bar.

Ecuador, who reverted to the side which beat Costa Rica 3-0, looked sharper with strike pair Agustin Delgado and Tenorio back in the team. In the second half, England's passing (if you can call it passing), failed to improve and one wonders whether Sven had done anything in the dressing room to address the problems. Does he even realise what is wrong with the team in the first place? It is good that he has already announced his departure before the tournament otherwise the English press would have been baying for his blood.

The dependence on set-pieces to break the deadlock is extremely dangerous as we have seen that the performance and reliability of Beckham doesn't work exactly like a Swiss watch. Soccer Pundit can forgive Rooney for feeling frustrated as he is not getting the service which is needed for him to perform. One disturbing aspect for Soccer Pundit is that the England players seem to be more interested in individual glory than the interest of the team as they wasted shots after shots when a direct through pass to Rooney may be better (yes, i am referring to Lampard and Joe Cole).

This is the problem with having too many individual stars in a team and team-work ethics is pushed aside. Instead of putting their effort into making the final killer pass, they are more interested in taking chances and making rugby shots but they did not seem to care that each chance they wasted deprives England of a chance to win the match.

The personality of the coach is important in putting the players in their place. Sven seems to let the players do what they like on the field and hopefully they are able to grind out a result. Just throw in all the superstars into the cauldron and leave it to them to deliver. However, in a team sports, things doesn't work out this way.

It has been said before but here it is again. His selection of players for this World Cup is not a controversy but it is also turning out to be a disaster with the limited options he is now facing. Conclusion: he is no longer the same coach who took Lazio to the championship...