More pictures - Germany vs England

in no particular order

The boys before the game...

Gerrard on the ball...

I got a couple of great pictures of David James with appropriate ads behind it. This is in the second half, after yet another goal conceded.

Some kids sitting next to us, who decided to decorate themselves at half time, even though England weren't doing so well.

The media were in frenzy mode before the game. There was a photographer pack at every game, but this one was about 3 times the size of at previous games, and plenty crowded in facing the bench to take photos of Capello and Becks during the anthem.

Chilling out before the game...

look - Rooney was playing!

A great save (i think this was that moment anyway)

The english. there were plenty of them. But a surprising number of germans put their flags up when they scored.

Overall it was a pretty dismal england performance. We were right on the line for the goal that wasn't awarded, and several people around us got photos of the ball over the line. At the event they don't provide replays of controversial events, as we found out last time for the Japan goal against us (a foul on the goalkeeper was ignored), and as the boys found out at the final with the Zindane incident. So we rely on text messages from people watching the tele, what others around us have seen, and now we have iphones, we check the commentary text from the beeb, guardian, smh, etc (because 1 is never enough).

And one of the things we wish we could get here is more english media, because they are very entertaining. We have been able to read some of the newspaper stories (Hand of Clod got a giggle), but we are missing gary linekar's response to the goal being disallowed etc. There was a great comparison in a local paper, from an Irish paper originally I think, of the coverage on the BBC vs the coverage on RTE for the England - Slovenia match, that was brilliant: the beeb would say Rooney was really coming into his own, the RTE would say he was crap... the beeb would say the goal really motivated the english, RTE would say how sad it is that the goal didn't motivate the english....

So for the next few days it is Robben Island, wineries, table mountain (weather permitting), etc.