Predicatably, there isn’t much going on as far as Arsenal are concerned during the World Cup. So what I will be doing through the course of this tournament is following the fortunes (or otherwise) of our lads featuring for their national sides.

The first batch of fixtures in the first four groups have been played out, and several of our lot were on show. Let’s take a look at how they did.

Jens Lehmann.

Germany 4-2 Costa Rica.

Considering his spectacular form over the last season, Champions League records and whatnot, Jens would be less than thrilled with letting in two goals that could have easily been prevented had the mongloid playing rightback for the Gerries had any idea of what holding the line actually means. For both Costa Rica goals, this inept fullback was at fault, playing Wanchope a yard onside for both goals. Jens did his best to spread and position himself for the shot, but Wanchope is no mug and his years of Premiership experience were reflected in his cool finishes.

However, Germany were not to be denied and a spectacular Torsten Frings goal capped an excellent opening match at the World Cup.

Ashley Cole, Theo Walcott, Sol Campbell.

England 1-0 Paraguay.

So England get the tournament underway with a highly dodgy performance against one of the poorer sides from South America. The performance was nothing to write home about, but three points should do nicely for a team that, despite having world class talents, still cannot find a balance in midfield.

Ashley Cole started at leftback and had an OK performance. Ever since Ashley’s broken into top flight football, he’s been his best when he’s linked up with a pacy left winger. Joe Cole has only recently been moved into the left midfield slot and these two will take time to gel as a left sided unit.

The only solution to this dilemma is Ashley sitting back more and cutting down on his bombing runs down the left. Doubt that will happen though, and problems will arise as Joe Cole is not the sort of player who likes getting back to help the fullback out.

Theo Walcott did not feature in this match. Sol Campbell didn’t either (thankfully).

Freddie Ljungberg.

Sweden 0-0 Trinidad & Tobago.

Freddie was one of Sweden’s liveliest players, constantly giving the T&T’s fullback problems (though the makeshift fullback did extremely well). Didn’t have much impact in terms of creating goals, symptomatic of Sweden’s overall performance. He seems to have his energy back, which will be vital for Sweden against Paraguay and England.

Kolo Toure, Manu Eboue.

Cote d’Ivoire 1-2 Argentina.

This has easily been the most entertaining match of the World Cup so far for me. Great attacking football, physical midfielders playing alongside wizards like Riquelme, clinical finishing and a grand finale following Drogba’s goal.

Kolo was solid in the center, had a good game. Eboue looked poor, especially given the standards he’s set for himself over the last four months. He suffered from the same problem Ashley Cole did: lack of chemistry with the winger in front of them. At Arsenal, Hleb rotates possession between Cesc and Eboue, allowing Eboue to make his trademark runs down the flank. This isn’t the case in the international arena. That aside, however, his defensive play left a lot to be desired as well. Eboue will really need to lift his game if he’s to make the sort of impact millions of Ivorians are expecting him to make.

On a sidenote, after this match I was convinced that Argentina actually PRACTISE diving. Saviola’s swandive to get Eboue booked for nothing (what goes around, comes around, I guess), and Sorin’s audition for the next Speilberg WWII flick had me screaming at the television. These Argie fuckers really don’t have any shame, it isn’t one or two players who are involved in this, it’s a trend seen in the entire team.

Take nothing away from Riquelme, however. This classy playmaker justified his billing as his country’s star man, and his throughball for Saviola’s goal was nothing short of worldclass.

Robin van Persie.

Serbia & Montenegro 0-1 Holland.

When Arsenal played Chelsea at Highbury last season, Wenger chose to play a 4-5-1 with Robin van Persie manning the left flank. It was evident after 25 minutes (despite van Persie slotting in a perfectly good goal that was disallowed) that van Persie’s effervescent dribbling and shooting would not come out from the flank.

Marco van Basten made the same mistake yesterday. Everyone knew from the start that Sneijder, Robben and van Persie are Holland’s most creative players, and they will create and score a bulk of their goals. While Robben was allowed to float inside and wreak havoc in his Man of the Match performance, for some strange reason, van Basten had van Persie pinned on the right flank just on the halfway line getting almost no service at all.

Sneijder barely had any impact in his slot behind van Nistelrooy, and when Holland didn’t have the ball, the resorted to chucking long balls at the United No.10, who was No.2 at dealing with those longballs. When van Persie cut inside for five minutes, he instantly created a goal. Following on a quick pass from midfield, he flicked it first time into the path of Robben’s excellent run. Robben ended the move with a cool finish, both 22-year olds celebrating madly on the touchline. van Basten should have allowed van Persie to move into the center-forward position behind van Nistelrooy, as he would’ve linked up much better with the lone striker as well as Arjen Robben. The Dutch could’ve scored a couple more had that switch been made earlier.

Tonight, we’ll see our new boy Tomas Rosicky feature for the Czech Republic. More on his perfomance after tonight’s round of matches.