SATURDAY .......

Thought that I should check in, just in case you were thinking that I had fallen off the face of the earth ! Obviously this has been a quiet week and I have been mainly working on the World Cup, watching the French Open and enjoying some sunshine !

I have only really had a couple of selections, one was unlucky IMO and the other produced a very nice return at Roland Garros, so I remain in pretty good form. Today, I like two games, but can only share one on here and just with very basic notes, sorry about that, but I have to leave the house shortly and it is post this, or nothing at all !

I was hoping to offer a regular World Cup update in return for a small donation to charity, but that is not going to be possible. However, this is something I might look at again in the near future and a way for someone to benefit from my hard work. Think that I will do my best to post on a daily basis during the Championships, even if I cannot post a selection or two every day, I will force you to read my thoughts on what is going on in South Africa ! For now .............

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLIES :

Algeria - UAE

This match is taking place in Germany, with Algeria looking for a much needed morale boosting win before their World Cup campaign gets underway. Since recording a famous win over hated rivals Egypt to qualify for the finals and then reaching the ACN semi finals, the Fennecs have put in a series of lack lustre performances. I can excuse those somewhat, there was so much euphoria surrounding the win over the African champions, that there was bound to be a mental let down at some stage and better to get it out of the way before the big one starts.

However, they now need a win, just to restore confidence and I think they might have found the right opponents. Algeria will have pretty much their first eleven out today and have almost all the crowd behind them in Nurnberg. I watched the UAE defeat Moldova 3-2 in Austria last week and the defending from both teams was sunday league standard, all five goals came from errors and it is easy to understand why FIFA ranks them 101 and 89 in the world respectively. The Arab side have underachieved for 15 years and have had problems in preparation for this game, with some training sessions cancelled, they will be without a couple of key players and I think that it will be plain to see why FIFA rank the African side 71 places higher this afternoon. They are certainly not likely to be as free and easy in front of goal as Moldova were and a more focused performance from Algeria should see them ease home in this one.

Algeria -0.75 goals 2.07 Sbobet.

Good Luck.