Frank Leboeuf, Mick McCarthy and a Robbie Earle doppelganger (it may have been him) were all at Poland's rather dire defeat to Ecuador. Luis Fernando Suarez's men deserved the win and played some acceptable enough stuff but Poland allowed them to. Still, it was good to see the Polish support clapping the Ecuador national anthem and continuing to offer full song even when Agustin Delgado scored the second. And despite there only being an official total of 16% of each stadium's capacity available for the fans of teams, Schalke 04's ground was a 52,000 sell-out, filled with the colours of each side, which means the touts are doing their job or something else is occurring.
This group is the one that will provide England's first opposition beyond the opening round, should they progress. Either of these teams appears beatable. And Germany, despite the easy win against Costa Rica, allowed two sloppy goals (although Paulo Wanchope's second was clearly off-side).
Which means if England can beat Paraguay in Frankfurt and begin a major tournament convincingly for once, then they should should be confident of a quarter-final berth, whoever they meet.
Shouldn't they?
Jamie Jackson is part of the Observer team covering the World Cup
