Soccer: England surviving the heat

I know the kind of heat that the England players had to endure on Saturday.

The way your feet burn, the way you cannot drink enough water in the short breaks in play and the way the gradual dehydration not only saps you physically but your concentration, too.

It was the same in the first game of the 1998 World Cup when we played Tunisia in Marseilles, the only other time in the last 10 major international tournaments, including this one, that England have won their first game.

It may sound like an excuse that a professional footballer, who spends all his time training, can get tired, but in conditions like these, the heat can be horrendous.

Down at pitch level it is a different story from the temperature in the stands.

As a player, you are sprinting, turning and checking.

Your feet are burning and, as you heat up, it can affect you mentally.

In Marseilles it was 30C in the shade, the air was hot and muggy and keeping concentration was a real struggle.

Those are the conditions the England team faced in Frankfurt and nothing can prepare you for them after a season in an English climate.

This was an awkward game for England and they will be aware of the criticism at home but nothing can take away from the thrill of winning the first match of the tournament.

It was a difficult game, the conditions were against them and yet they still won.

After the draw between Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago they will be feeling good about their position in Group B.

You need to start any tournament in control and, while the supporters might have wanted six or seven goals, the absolute priority is to win.

England are in a strong position in their group and, as it was for the team in 1998, that has a powerful effect on morale.

They were at their best in the opening stages of the first half when they played at a high-tempo, similar to the style of the Premiership.

But that was always going to be impossible to keep up in the heat and my fear is that England do not have a viable alternative to the all-action pressing game that worked so well for them at first.

What do they do when they are too tired to constantly hustle opponents?England began to give the ball away in dangerous areas.

Rather than keep the ball, suddenly they were choosing to shoot from distance.

Perhaps it was the heat and the effect it was having on the mindset of some of the players but they did not appear to be thinking hard enough about making the right decisions.

The game did not seem to have a pattern and the initiative had been lost.

There must be a serious worry about where England's goals will come from.

Not many chances were created and Michael Owen just did not look as sharp as we know he can be.

This was not the Michael that I remember racing through the Argentina defence in St Etienne eight years ago.

Instead of anticipating the flow of play, he appeared to be reacting to it.

I hope that it was the heat affecting Michael and not a lingering injury problem after his long lay-off this season.

If you are not completely match fit, and this was only the fourth game back for Michael since he played against Belarus last month, then the heat will find you out.

When Michael came off there did not seem to be a plan, much less a replacement for him.

In the second half, England appeared to be inviting Paraguay to attack them.

The opposition were not particularly talented going forward and yet England seemed to be allowing Paraguay to come at them.

You could not help but notice that England's full-backs Ashley Cole and Gary Neville looked a little off the pace.

The performance of the full-backs - I know from experience - has a major bearing on the way in which a team play.

They get a lot of the ball and how they use it is very important.

With Ashley Cole in particular, you expect him to get forward but he seemed to be reluctant to do that.

Perhaps it was because England had scored early, the team settled into a less attacking aspect and the full-backs just seemed content to feed the players in front of them.

For my money, Frank Lampard was the best England performer.

He gave the team their energy and kept pushing forward, even in the latter stages when he went close with a shot.

He played at a good tempo and defensively the two centre-backs looked sound.

Looking at the way the group stages have been drawn in this tournament, I don't think it will become truly competitive until the latter stages.

By then England will have to have picked up some momentum to show they are on their way.

- INDEPENDENT