Stuart Pearce

The coach is without full internationals Jack Wilshere, Andy Carroll and Kieran Gibbs, but still believes he has enough talent at his disposal to trouble the Spanish who, like England, didn’t win their qualifying group.

England defeated Spain 2-0 at the same stage two years ago in Sweden but, although they made the final of that tournament, lost 4-0 to a Mesut Ozil-inspired Germany which provided several members of the World Cup semi-finalists’ senior squad a year later.

Without Gibbs, who picked up an injury in the final warm-up match against Norway this week, Pearce must promote his only other left-back Ryan Bertrand into a back four which may also include captain Michael Mancienne and future Manchester United pairing Phil Jones and Chris Smalling.

England are arguably more potent in attack than two years ago with both Danny Sturridge and Danny Welbeck having scored goals while on loan at Premier League clubs last season, but Spain look classier in midfield with Barcelona’s highly-rated Thiago Alcantara the star of their 1-1 friendly draw with Russia on the eve of the finals.

However, Spain’s failure to beat both Belarus and Russia in their warm-up matches will give England confidence as Pearce sets up to play on the counter-attack with the pace of Sturridge and Welbeck.

And England (9/4 in Group B Outright Winner), despite last winning the Under-21 tournament back in 1984, have had the better of Spain (5/4) in five of their eight previous meetings, drawing once and losing twice.

In Group B’s other fixture on Sunday Ukraine face the Czech Republic in a match which will evoke memories of these nations’ meetiing at the Euro Under-17 finals four years ago, with a lot of the same players involved.

Lukas Marecek put the Czechs 1-0 up in Italy but Ukraine responded with four Dmytro Korkishko goals, including a 12-minute hat-trick before half-time. Miroslav Stepanek pulled one back before Serhiy Shevchuk made it 5-2 before the final whistle.

The Czechs were the only team to remain undefeated through qualifying – winning nine games and drawing one. Top scorer Tomas Pekhart grabbed nine goals in qualifying while Libor Kozak scored three.

They also have plenty of creative midfield options – Liberec’s Borek Dockal and Sigma’s Tomas Horava will be on many scouts’ lists while Kaiserslautern’s Jan Moravek may be the best of those already playing outside the country (Czech Republic 7/2 in Group B Outright Winner).

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Algeria

The Wolves midfielder came on as a late substitute in the Desert Foxes’ disappointing defeat to Slovenia on Sunday, which left the north Africans with a mountain to climb if they are to progress from Group C. (Algeria 20/1 to qualify).

Algeria, who are making their first appearance in the tournament for 24 years now, have to beat England and the USA in consecutive games to make the last 16

Against Slovenia, Algeria had the upper hand throughout the match, playing most of the football but losing their shape after substitute striker Abdelkader Ghezzal was sent off for two bookable offences, and eventually  went down to a late Robert Koren strike.

However. the midfielder believes his side are over the disappointment of the defeat and are looking forward to the prospect of facing England on Friday.

“It was a disappointing performance because we didn’t deserve to lose,” he said.

“What we have to do is say it is finished now and look forward. Now we have two big matches and we have to be focused for England.

“We showed against Slovenia that we can do something. We will see against England. We need to be focused and we need to be confident.

Both sides fell foul to goalkeeping errors in their first game and the selection between the sticks will be one of the main talking points in the build up to the match.

Robert Green failed to hold Clint Dempsey’s long range shot to give the USA a draw and the Algeria goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi was at fault for the Slovenian winner on Sunday. Algeria coach Rabah Saadane has been quick to back his goalkeeper and has guaranteed his place for the game against England. However England coach Fabio Capello has been a little more reluctant to support his goalkeeper and speculation is rife that he is set to be replaced and the midfielder is reluctant to blame his goalkeeper for the error

“I don’t know, I’m not the coach,” he said.

“We saw the England goalkeeper making a mistake so it is not his (Chaouchi’s) fault. I am disappointed for him.

“Everyone makes a mistake in football: sometimes it’s the goalkeeper, sometimes it’s me, sometimes another player.”

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The Liverpool midfielder was named as captain after Rio Ferdinand was ruled out of the tournament when he picked up a knee ligament injury in the first training session since the team landed in South Africa.

Gerrard believes that penalties are inevitable if the side make it past the group stages of the competition.

He said: “I’ve got a feeling we might have to go to penalties at some point and as a player going into a World Cup,  you’ve got to be prepared for a shoot-out, it’s as simple as that.

“The games when you get further into a tournament are so tight. Hopefully we get a bit more luck this time – and I take a better penalty.”

Gerrard missed a penalty in the defeat against Portugal in the quarter-finals of the competition which was just one of many spot-kick heartbreaks for the Three Lions in major tournaments.

Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard is England’s regular spot-kick taker but he has not been able to convert his last two penalties – the first was against Portsmouth in the FA Cup final at Wembley with the second in the pre-tournament friendly with Japan.

Gerrard believes that is impossible to replicate the pressure that is placed on a player during a penalty shootout.

He said: “When you practise penalties in training you pick a ball up and shoot within a few seconds.

“But in the World Cup… what is it, a 30-second walk from the half-way line when you’ve got millions and millions of viewers back home wanting you to score? You can’t prepare for that.

“What you can do is be ready and not shy away from it and have the bottle to step up there for another go – especially when you’ve missed one before. I’ll be ready.”

England are currently preparing for their opening match of the World Cup against USA on June 12 (England 4/9 draw 3/1 USA 6/1 – match betting).

Gareth Barry has taken part in his second day of training since coming back from the ankle injury he picked playing for Manchester City against Tottenham.

The Three Lions will be hoping for no more injury worries ahead of that first game against USA before they take on Algeria and Slovenia in Group C.

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