England will wake tomorrow morning to demoralising headlines. The non-performnce of England becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, where players play badly, get criticised, tighten up and continue to play badly. Seeing as Slovenia have looked better than Algeria and at least as good as the USA, this offers little cause for optimism if you're an England fan. Even Adrian Chiles looks annoyed, and he's a man you could smack with a rolled-up magazine before he'd react adversely.  Can we end this broadcast on a positive note? Unlikely, but I'll try: France. Nick Pearce is back at midday tomorrow with Holland against Japan. See you soon.  21.32 Gareth Southgate reckons Capello needs to try and take the pressure off the players. Never mind that, Gareth, where's my burger?  Fabio Capello: "We play not good game. We miss a lot of goals. Easy passes. We have to play another game. We hope will be happy. I don't know if pressure or not good moment, but I think was not good game. We lose too many passes. You say pressure. Probably. I don't like to speak about players. I think it's the team that didn't play the spirit that I like. I can change, I will try to do something different. I spoke with the players. They know what they have to do."  21.27 That sound you can hear is the rest of the world tittering. Even - dear Lord - the Americans.  Steven Gerrard: "We weren't good enough in the final third to get the breakthrough. We've got no excuses. We've got to go and win the last game. We never hit our level today. We weren't aggressive enough, we didn't win the ball back early enough. We've got to look at ourselves."  Wayne Rooney: "Nice to see your home fans booing you."  From Duncan White: "Unbeaten England march on. Canny Capello contrives draw to avoid the Germans. Ghana trembles."  21.24 Right. Let's try and put a positive spin on it, at least.  1) They could have lost.  2) There's always next time.  21.21 Deflating, to say the least. The eleven footballers that are picked to represent the country of England need to put on a better show than that. Who do you blame? Gerrard? Heskey? Rooney? Lampard? I blame Capello.  FULL TIME: England 0-0 Algeria Loud, loud boos in Cape Town. England expected, and England stank.  90+3 min Belhadj takes it, it flies over, and that's practically it. No! One last corner!  90+2 min Free-kick to Algeria on the right as Rooney catches Kadir. Capello is incensed, but not half as much as we are. For everything.  90+1 min Crouch dances down the wing beautifully, beating two men before slipping a pass inside to an Algerian player. The sublime followed by the ridiculous.  90 min Three minutes for England to find a winner they absolutely do not deserve. Defoe shoots over from distance.  From Duncan White: "Boos for Frank Lampard for having a shot. Not in the spirit."  89 min Algeria haven't given the win up. Belhadj swings in a testing free-kick. James catches under pressure.  88 min "Is Mike Bassett doing the post-match interview?" asks Joe Mann. No, Joe. He could speak English.  87 min Lampard, who's had the kind of night that would drive lesser men to drink, tries a long-range shot that trickles pitifully - pitiably - wide. Algeria make their final change - Mesbah comes on for Yebda.  86 min Rooney's been off the pace like a drunken greyhound tonight. He loses the ball, wins it back and then tries a Hollywood pass to Wright-Phillips. It's cut out.  85 min Corner for England. Lampard swings it in, and Defoe heads it out for a... goal-kick. Gerrard claims his shirt was being tugged. Get up and play, you pathetic Scouseman.  84 min Annemarie Breiter, who I suspect is German, taunts us thus: "Franz Beckenbauer was right, wasn't he? Kick and rush, like in the 60s. No fantasy! No ideas!" I wouldn't bring up the 60s if I were you...  82 min If you can't see what's happening, this is roughly equivalent to the French performance last night. Except we don't have an Henry sitting on a bench. The next best thing, though. Here comes Peter Crouch for Gareth Barry. Capello is definitely going for it.  81 min Johnson with a cross from the right. It. Is. Appalling.  80 min Capello having an earnest discussion with Gerrard on the sidelines. "Why-a you do this to me? Don't you know, I very important man? You displease me. And you don't even think to call me Godfather..."  79 min Wright-Phillips tries to find Gerrard, but the pass is overhit and trickles over the goal-line. Algeria bring Wolves's Adlane Guedioura on for Ziani.  From Ian Chadband: "Yours sincerely, wasting away..."  77 min Another corner for England, who are trying to gather a little momentum here. But another poor delivery by Lampard.  From Mark Ogden: "Ray of light. Algerians beginning to tire. But are England good enough to take advantage?"  76 min Barry on the volley! It's deflected, and out for a throw.  75 min Gerrard feeds it into the right channel for Defoe. The angle's tight, but he forces a corner.  74 min Opportunity for England, and Defoe looks sharp as a tack! Defoe and Gerrard combine well to win England a corner. It's taken by Gerrard, and is horrific.  73 min Rooney dropping deep to receive the ball, and shoots from 30 yards. It goes just wide. Abdoun comes on for Boudebouz for Algeria, while for England Heskey somehow manages to locate the touchline and steps over it. Defoe comes on.  72 min Jermain Defoe is getting ready to make his first World Cup appearance. Will Heskey finally be put out of his slack-jawed, cack-handed misery?  70 min Gerrard - the England captain, remember - is having a horrific game. He's had the first touch of a Hyundai. Another pass goes astray.  69 min Heskey gets a sniff of an opening! But his cross to Rooney is cut out, and goes over the goal for a corner. From the corner, it's Gerrard! But straight at M'Bolhi.  68 min Algeria are dropping back now. They'd certainly take a 0-0. A draw would leave England third in the group, behind Slovenia and the USA. A win against Slovenia would still see them through, but the USA could sneak top spot.  66 min "The English are certainly being hospitable; after this performance, I figure the odds of USA advancing have probably doubled," says Chris Bastian in New York.  64 min Capello's shouts are audible above the vuvuzelas. The man is furious. It was Lennon that Wright-Phillips came on for, by the way.  63 min "Listening in Iceland (it's a domestic arrangement) and even the locals are laughing at us!" writes Orson Ound. An atrocious back-pass by John Terry, puts David James in serious truoble, but the oldest swinger in town scampers out and gets a boot on it.  62 min Better from England! The first touch is still a little heavy, but eventually Lennon manages to dink a cross in, and Rooney is inches away from heading in. M'Bolhi fumbles the corner, but Algeria come away with it.  From Duncan White: "What would you change? Passport might be safest bet."  61 min It's caught by Rais M'Bolhi. Shaun Wright-Phillips is being readied on the sidelines.  60 min Rooney's had one of his worst games in an England shirt. Yebda tackles easily, but puts it out for a corner. Gerrard to take.  59 min Yahia shoots, but drags it wide. What if Algeria score? What then?  58 min Yellow card for Carragher, who will miss the next game as a result. He brought down Yebda needlessly, and Algeria will now have a free-kick in a dangerous spot.  57 min "I'm off to Tesco in the morning to get a refund on the flags I purchased for the car," Meg Cochran says.  56 min England are playing like a team that have never met. Rooney mis-controls in the area.  54 min Algeria give the ball away in a dangerous spot! Rooney slips it to Gerrard, who slips it back for... nobody.  53 min Bring Joe Cole on. Do it, Fabio. Bring on Joe Cole... for all eleven England players.  52 min "This is the first time I've ever bothered to stay up late to watch an England match (it's 3.30am here)," says William Dunn in Beijing. "I don't think I'll bother again... and will go to sleep now." Mind you don't have nightmares.  51 min Gerrard finds Heskey on the right. He dribbles it like a man approaching a football for the first time after a long spell in a coma. He crosses straight out of play.  50 min How can they not score? How could they not even create a decent chance against such weak opposition? You just hope the manager has had a word at half-time. Otherwise the Algerian public are not going to be happy with their players...  From Duncan White: "David James just had our longest spell of possession."  48 min Rob Richardson asks: "Could England's lack of result be some unknown part of the new government's austerity programme?" I remember last week, everyone was saying you couldn't legislate against goalkeeping errors. Could somebody in Number Ten at least try?  47 min It hits the wall and goes for a throw. But from it, Ziani gets the ball and runs. Johnson has to time his tackle well to dispossess him.  46 min Algeria win a cheap free-kick as Matmour goes down under Terry's challenge. Yahia will take it, 40 yards out.  20.30 The players are back out. No changes for England at half-time.  20.29 My half-time England ratings:  All marks out of 100  20.26 Mark Gray is watching in France. "The French commentator just asked if Capello and Domenech went to the same coaching school," he writes. "I wonder if Steve McLaren ran the course?" Oh, my. Imagine if Raymond Domenech were managing this group of players. It would be like watching an awful snuff movie.  20.25 Joe Mann, meanwhile, has another solution: "Give Heskey a vuvuzela and stick him in the crowd instead." I thought Heskey was OK. It's Lampard and Rooney that need a plastic trumpet inserted in a tender place at the moment.  20.22 Drew Hope finds reasons to be cheerful: "I am listening to Radio Five Live. They sound so upset, like England have been thrashed 10-nil. From what I have heard Algeria are nowhere near scoring and England have been close a couple of times. England will pick it up. COME ON ENGLAND!!!"  From Ian Chadband: "Paul Ince, pundit for South African TV, mutters 'Algeria are dictating the game'"  20.20 Let's rhyme our troubles away. Phil Dale is back with a proper limerick.  There once was a Keeper named Green,  Who fumbled a save quite routine.  Now Green is an England has-been.  WRAP: Earlier this week, a leaky drain covered the England dressing room in two inches of filthy water. That wasn't the last sewage to come out of that dressing room, by the looks of things. If the World Cup is a barbecue, England are the Quorn mince at the moment. This is not good enough.  From Duncan White: "League Two throw-in tactics. Fling it to Heskey, flick to nobody"  HALF TIME: England 0-0 Algeria Shocking. Awful. Absolute pies. Capello, hands in pockets, trudges resignedly down the tunnel. No boos that I can hear, but maybe I need to be watching in HD to pick that up...  45 min One minute of stoppage time. England could do with a spot of Capello ear-bashing at this point.  44 min Stuart McShorley on e-mail: "Watching here in Broussard, Louisiana trying to explain the comedy of errors to my American friends. England look like a shoddy Sunday league team."  From Duncan White: "No sooner praise Barry and Heskey than they both start repeatedly giving the ball away..."  43 min Rooney goes for goal from distance. But M'Bolhi gets his body behind it and saves comfortably.  42 min Ten of the Algerian starting XI were born in France. Probably seemed like a decent strategy once, but not any more...  40 min Again England give the ball away in a promising position. This is not the kind of performance that is going to frighten Brazil. It's barely the kind of performance to frighten Alan Brazil.  39 min England are, though, finally showing some guile. Johnson finds Heskey on the right. Halliche slides in a clearance.  37 min Seven minutes to half-time. England could scarcely be worse. Lennon breaks down the right, but is forced inside. Eventually he finds Barry, who shoots weakly from distance.  36 min Rooney is felled but gets up with the ball. Lampard tries to find Lennon with an incisive through ball, but a last-ditch tackle stops him. Bougherra clears, but Gerrard with his second atrocious shot of the evening. Some lucky car park attendant will have caught that one.  35 min Adrian Tanner e-mails in. "Watching live from Japan. 4am here. My wife (who is Japanese and does not understand football) just asked 'why do England keep giving the ball to the team in the green? Anyone have an answer for her?"  34 min Barry is caught by Matmour in midfield and Algeria break. Ziani runs, cuts inside and shoots, but James has it covered and it flies past his near post.  33 min Barry with a near-suicidal back-pass at about 40 mph. An alarmed James controls it on his chest.  32 min Best chance of the game for England! Much more like it as Lennon gets some space down the right and picks out Lampard. A left-footed shot comes in, M'Bolhi gets down and saves.  Henry Winter: "England lack cohesion. Frank Lampard not at the races. Needs to raise game. England fans great, must be 40k. Good Roo-Gerrard linkup. More please."  30 min England working up a little head of steam here. Rooney tries a cute one-two with Lampard, but Lampard's return ball sails out of play. Only a little head of steam.  29 min Better from England! Gerrard and Rooney team up for the first time since their game of darts last night, and Gerrard can let fly a shot that bounces awkwardly in front of M'Bolhi.  28 min Terry's fine, but here come Algeria again. Belhadj finds Ziani on the left, but he's offside. Algeria have had seven attempts on goal to England's two so far, according to Opta. Pathetic.  27 min Barry hooks away another dangerous cross by Bougherra. But John Terry's picked up a little knock to the head here. That's all Capello needs.  26 min Heskey robs Halliche on the edge of the Algerian area! He tries to poke it through for Rooney, but he's penalised as he battles with Bougherra.  25 min Lennon, down the left this time. He's brought down by Boudebouz. Barry crosses, but it's absolutely nowhere near Heskey.  24 min Ziani runs the ball down the left, but tricks himself out of play. That's the calibre of the team that are currently making England look like amateurs. Get a grip, lads.  From Mark Ogden: "So far, Gerrard's pass completion is 43 per cent. You'd never guess."  22 min Bougherra with a dangerous cross into Yebda! Barry sticks a leg out and gets it away, but England are on the verge of conceding. James plucks the corner out of the air, and that might settle him down a little.  21 min England are absolutely nowhere around the edge of their area. Ziani had a shot there, which skews wide.  19 min First sign of Rooney, who slips it to Gerrard, who's caught. Free-kick, from which Rooney has a shot deflected harmlessly.  18 min Gerrard tries to pick out... actually, I'm not sure who he was trying to pick out there. A shocking pass.  17 min Barry gets touch of the ball, but Algeria whip it off his feet and are enjoying a good spell of possession. Worrying times for England.  16 min Ziani skins Johnson and gets in a dangerous cross, but England get lucky with the bounce of the ball and clear.  14 min Boudebouz tries a shot from distance that goes well wide. Still, it's closer than England have got. And as if to prove the point, Gerrard blasts higher than Hell from 20 yards.  From Paul Kelso: "Not really clicking yet for England. Lampard not getting on the ball and Rooney has given it away twice."  13 min No more limericks, please, the game has started. Although kudos to David Sterling, who tried to rhyme Wright-Phillips. With 'hiccup'.  12 min Heskey goes up, but the whistle goes for a little shove in the back of Bougherra.  11 min The Algerian coach Rabah Saadane is making an almighty racket on the touchline. He's in, remarkably, his fifth spell as manager. By the time you refresh your page, he's probably quit and been reinstated once more. Corner for England.  10 min Finally, an actual limerick. Cheers, Ash Baker.  For forty-four years we have hunted  Though the ball seldom goalward was punted --  May we not hear the sound  In the third or fourth round  8 min Jim Hatch has e-mailed in his pitch for the England goalkeeper's jersey: "My grandad was goalkeeper for Ashfield United when they won the Scottish Junior Cup in 1893 and '94." That alone, sir, probably puts you ahead of Paul Robinson.  7 min Corner for Algeria as Lennon whips the ball off Ziani's raised foot. It's a poor ball, though, and Gerrard clears.  6 min Ashley Cole's playing like an outside left here. He gets outside Kadir, but loses the ball trying to cut inside Bougherra.  5 min Chance for Algeria! Matmour breaks free down the right and cuts back for Boudebouz, who inexplicably dummies over it! He was in a good position there. Half a let-off for England.  4 min Gerrard tries what looks like a cross, but ends up almost sailing in over Rais M'Bolhi's head. He has to jump to catch.  3 min Gerrard swings the free-kick in. Heskey gets a head on it, but not goalwards. Here come England again, though.  2 min Rooney's playing up with Heskey, rather than behind him in a 4-2-3-1. Cole weaves down the left and is brought down. Free-kick on the touchline.  1 min Algeria press straight from kick-off. Ashley Cole intercepts and boots it out.  19.28 David James is making his World Cup debut at the age of 39. Hope for us all. Referee Ravshan Irmatov of Uzbekistan gets us under way. Vamos, England!  19.25 The teams are out on the pitch. National anthems. England, stately and mumbled. Algeria, hurried and half-hearted. No-score draw.  19.19 OTHER THINGS THAT ARE NOT LIMERICKS: This, from Ian Bowles:  Today Rooney takes on Algeria,  So to avoid an embarrassing defeat,  And back home uncontrollable hysteria,  Just deliver the ball to his feet.  From Mark Ogden: "More England flags than Algerian fans in Green Point. Incredible."  19.17 Apologies to readers in Telegraph HD. I believe that last Henry Winter tweet was obscured by a Toshiba advert. Sorry about that.  From Paul Kelso: "Up in the gods in Green Point. Viewers in Kent may be marginallly closer to pitch than me"  19.13 Jamie Carragher starting at centre back for England. Who would have thought that six months ago? It's he, not the goalkeeper, who looks like being England's weak link for me. Jozy Altidore, admittedly about 25 years younger, skinned him for pace a couple of times in the USA game.  19.09 Strange shirt choice by Gareth Southgate. It's salmon pink, but with a white collar. He looks like a waiter at some ersatz American diner.  19.07 What do we know about Algeria? Not much, I grant. They looked uniformly ordinary against Slovenia, but England do have a habit of giving everybody a chance, no matter how terrible they are. (It's our version of the American Dream.) They play 3-4-3, with Ryad Boudebouz and Karim Ziani playing just behind Karim Matmour. And they've been watching The Battle of Algiers, a film about the bloody independence struggle, to get them in the mood for tonight's game. What do we reckon England watched last night? I'm going to take a stab at Zoolander.  19.00 Here's a definition of a limerick, in case you're unsure. (Warning: contains the word 'amphibrachic')  18.58 Phil Dale from Portland, Oregon gets top marks for effort. No marks whatsoever, though, for knowing what a limerick is.  There's nothing more nervous than waiting,  for England to take to the field.  We worry what team we'll be seeing,  and if any more balls will be spilled?  18.57 Princes William and Harry will be in the stadium tonight. If they were hoping to put their boots on and get a game for their country, they're a little late - Germany played earlier on.  18.54 Fifa are running a competition: "Fancy winning the actual ball used at kick-off of the England-Algeria game? Here's how." It doesn't then go on to say: "Stand outside the stadium as Emile Heskey's about to attempt a half-volley", but that would certainly be my advice.  18.53 I have to say, I think dropping Rob Green was a mistake. Not because he didn't deserve to be dropped - if you make that kind of mistake on that kind of stage you can't expect to keep your place - but because it's not like we have Lev Yashin in the locker. What happens if David James fouls up tonight? Put Joe Hart in, obviously. Then what if he drops one? I believe at that stage, it would be time to say to Crouchy: "Get your gloves on, son."  18.50 English fans may recognise the names of Hassan Yebda and Nadir Belhadj of Portsmouth. Fans of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book may falsely recognise the name Bougherra.  Algeria: M'Bohli, Bougherra, Belhadj, Yahia, Kadir, Yebda, Lacen, Halliche, Boudebouz, Ziani, Matmour.  18.48 And here's the Algeria team.  From Henry Winter: "100-odd England flags clubs, most represented: Pompey, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, Leicester City, Luton Town. Keepers out...huge cheer"  18.16 And no, Bradley Wright-Phillips doesn't count.  18.15 We're in that nervous phase before the calming, over-wide face of Adrian Chiles makes its appearance in our living rooms. While you're twiddling your thumbs, why not have a go at writing a World Cup limerick? We've had some cracking submissinos so far. Extra credit if you can find something that rhymes with Shaun Wright-Phillips.  From Henry Winter: "Fantastic atmosphere outside Green Point Stadium. England fans everywhere. Thought Rustenburg busy. Even better here. Team will surely be lifted"  18.08 Right, it's prediction time. Not for me - I got my fingers burnt when I put my house on Spain to beat Switzerland. (You should have the seen the face on Mr Ladbrokes when he found out I rented.) But what do you think is going to happen tonight? And what do you want to happen tonight? Do we have any residual US fans siding with the Algerians? Any German fans hoping to avoid England in the second round? Any Australian fans... left? Do drop us an e-mail.  17.50 Earlier, Slovenia and the USA played out a thrilling 2-2 draw - the first in 42 World Cup matches dating back to Croatia v Australia v Graham Poll in 2006. That means England can go top of the group with a two-goal win.  England team (4-2-3-1): James; Johnson, Carragher, Terry, Cole A; Lampard, Barry; Gerrard, Lennon, Rooney; Heskey.  17.45 So, another game on the World Cup treadmill. Welcome to live commentary of game 23 of the 19th World Cup, a tournament that started slowly but has done nothing less than catch fire over the last couple of days. Goals, controversies, shocks and no end of quality. At this rate of improvement, we could be in the midst of one of the all-time classic mundials. Into this astonishing whirligig of furore and fervour step... Algeria and England. Right.  In all seriousness, though, I think we all know that this is the biggest game that England have ever played in their history, and whether they win or lose not only determines whether or not they will win this World Cup, but whether they will win all subsequent ones, too, and also whether our nation can once more ascend to the status and eminence it once enjoyed when it had an empire, or whether it will end up going cap in hand to a laughing IMF. Pressure? What pressure?  No team news as yet, although the strong word is that Zippy off Rainbow will be starting in goal for England. The moment Fabio Capello hands his team-sheet to an annoying, moustachioed Fifa official, we will have it here.
Live minute-by-minute commentary from the World Cup 2010 Group C game between    England and Algeria at the Green Point Stadium, Cape Town on Friday June 18    2010, kick-off 19.30 BST.