Slovenia v Algeria Soundoff, and Group C Developments

By far the most interesting narrative in this game was the story of Ghezzal, who came in for Algeria in the 2nd half and immediately made his presence felt with threatening headers and boneheaded play. Within a minute of jogging onto the pitch, he garnered a yellow card for grabbing a Slovenian jersey right in front of the referee. A few testy headers (and about 10 minutes) later, and Ghezzal was being sent off with the fastest succession of cards ever issued to a substitute. The play which finished the game for him was a ludicrous American-football style handball, as he looked like trying to catch a long over-the-shoulder pass into the box. Had he not gone off, and had Algeria been able to find his head off of a set piece, they might have been able to tie the game. As it was, though, we got what we expected from this game. Slovenia probably deserved to win, but their goal was a gift of poor goalkeeping from Algeria's Faouzi Chaouchi, and they will have work to do against the England. They are a very organized and disciplined team, that can apparently sit back and wait for attacking opportunities to present themselves. The USA will need to press their attacks and try to throw Slovenia off their system, and even though a 3-way tie is no longer a possibility, all teams will be wanting to play for goal differential, just to be safe.