Omens and a drink not enough to calm nerves

Then there's the drink: a vodka martini to deal with the butterflies. Tough times call for drastic measures.

The nerves have spread to the great Motty. He appeared in shirt and tie, sleeves firmly pinioned at the wrists. "No need for the sheepskin then," quipped Gary Lineker and John Motson grinned, sheepishly, as if caught on camera in his birthday suit.

Motty confessed to knocking a glass over earlier in the day. "Hope it was full," commented Alan Hansen, the Celtic bile already rising in anticipation.

Already, there was a desperate rummaging for glimmers of hope. We were told that Sapporo is twinned with Munich, site of England's last great triumph over Germany. Could this be a good omen? Good heavens, we'll grab any straw that's on offer.

My only great sadness was that Gazza was not present to give us the benefit of his gnomic wisdom. As I have mentioned before, Paul Gascoigne is the only man to make sense of the tournament. We read his face and react accordingly: his tears are our tears, his cheeky grin, too. Ah, well.

Another good omen, I felt, was the presence of the great Trevor Brooking by Motty's side, two homme serieux appropriate to the gravity of the situation.

Anyway, Brooking played in the same West Ham team as Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, all World Cup winners. Could a little of their magic have rubbed off on Trevor, who would then communicate it to the present team? That would be nice.

Before the kick-off, the two teams exchanged greetings in the accepted fashion. Everything seemed amicable enough but I swear I detected a bit of shirt-tugging. Maybe that was only an hallucination.

The football itself was a rush of images. Gabriel Batistuta, a man composed entirely of elbows, was booked early on for his efforts; Michael Owen was separated from a goal by the unfairly upright nature of a post. If there had been a Russian linesman, sorry assistant referee, then he might well have given it.

Owen Hargreaves limped off to be replaced on the left side of midfield by Trevor Sinclair, an other links with West Ham, who supplied those three players in 1966. The England shirts were red, the pitch was green - again, encouraging echoes of 36 years ago.

Indeed, the omens were good and Beckham drew first blood, although sadly it was from the nose of Killy Gonzalez. It should have been Diego Simeone.

And here comes Owen. And there goes Owen, down in the penalty area. Up steps Beckham with the spot kick. Oooh, Argentina, ever been conned?

From then on we're a bag of nerves, although Teddy Sheringham comes on after 55 minutes and does more with two touches than Emile Heskey did in two games.