Ice Cold In Avondale

Watching the World Cup Finals is thirsty work, particularly when the temperature today reached 94 degrees in Jacksonville.

This bottle of Corona, at The Brick restaurant in Avondale, toasted the USA's marvellous achievement at holding England to a draw and also commiserated with England dropping two points.

I fully expected the match to end in a draw. England are not renowned for making the best of starts in the group stage of the competition but hopefully they will get back on track with next week's game against Algeria.

In terms of quality of football, the day belonged to Argentina. Their brand of football is a sheer delight to watch and in Lionel Messi they have one of the most talented players ever to grace a football pitch.

Unlike England's much-hyped Wayne Rooney, Messi demonstrated that he is a world-class player. He controlled the game against Nigeria and was unlucky not score on several occasions.

But for all Messi's silky skills, Argentina are vulnerable at the back and better teams than Nigeria will exploit that vulnerability to the full.

Cheers!