Rather surprisingly, Wayne Bridge came on for the last ten minutes of England's superb win against Argentina. Bridge replaced Michael Owen as England reverted to a more defensive 4-5-1 in order to hold out for the win. Although Bridge's participation was pretty defensive, he acquitted himself excellently, slotting into the left of midfield as if he had been playing international football there for years. This was in fact Bridge's first competitive international, the others all having been friendlies. This has earned him a reported £50 000, a clause which was put into his last contract if he played a competitive international game.
Agustin Delgado can at least claim he has scored a World Cup goal, if not much else in this tournament. Hibernian's de la Cruz made another excellent run down the flank before delivering the ball to Delgado who put an excellent header past the keeper. Unfortunately, Delgado didn't contribute a great deal more to the game as Ecuador tried to hold on to their lead and then struggled to get back into the game when they went behind, eventually losing to Mexico 2-1. Delgado didn't get a great deal of support from his team mates and as a result he couldn't hold the ball up all the time, making his first touch look a little poor. On the Ecuador performance Agustin said: "We lacked the love, sacrifice and strength that we needed to get the win. When you're winning, you have to keep fighting and we didn't do that."
Kleber Chala also played the full ninety minutes but apart for a few nice touches didn't really affect the result. I don't think we'll see too much of Chala in a Saints shirt, to be honest. He's a decent enough player but Strachan will prefer Oakley, Svensson and Delap ahead of him.
Anders Svensson once again showed why he's such an impressive international. His awareness and key involvement in Sweden's moves were important as they beat Nigeria 2-1 to give themselves an excellent chance of getting through to the next round. As I've probably said before, I hope Strachan is watching these games and is now aware of where and how to play Anders.