English press 1, Team USA 0

England won 2-0 today. David Beckham did his thing with a free kick setting up the John Terry header that made it 1-0.

Terry's goal in no way redeemed him for the slip on wet grass that cost his club Chelsea the Champions League shootout last week. Still, it was nice to see -- so I guess I was rooting for England in the end.

Team USA got little out of the trip, including respect.

The game drew a crowd of 71,223 at Wembley Stadium, was the smallest for an England contest at the reconstructed London landmark.

And then there's this summing-up of the match in a minute-by-minute report on the website of England's Guardian newspaper.

It was a dismal match in which one very average team beat a really awful one, The Guardian says. To be fair, the second half, with its higher tempo, wasn't quite as boring as the first, but then it couldn't possibly have been. Man of the Match Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney played well for England, but it's difficult to put into words just how feeble their opponents were. A set of traffic cones would have put up more resistance and still England only won 2-0.

An L.A. sportswriter friend asked me once if the English press fawns over its national soccer team. No, it most certainly doesn't -- its tone is perpetually sarcastic and dissappointed. But sometimes its finds it likes somebody else's national team even less.