France 1-1 England: Match Report

England took the lead against their strongest group opponents only to be pegged back around 10 minutes later.

Joleon Lescott latched onto a Steven Gerrard freekick after just 31 minutes. Gerrard measured his cross to perfection and Lescott took his time and cooly nodded the ball home.

It was met nine minutes later by a sweet strike from Samir Nasri who found the gap in the defence and tucked it just out of the reach of keeper Joe Hart.

Roy Hodgson praised his team for their discipline and expressed his happiness at the result. "There wasn't many situations in front of our goal that I was worried. I've got to be very proud of our performance, I was pretty confident the players wouldn't let us down."

The refereeing decisions have come under scrutiny from pundits, fans and players alike, with decisions going mostly the French way, whilst he left injured English players on the floor. Match official Nicola Rizzoli fresutrated many players as England manager Hodgson said: "I know Steven was unhappy about not getting the decision but its silly to go around commenting on whether the referee had a good game."