England lead at half time - report

England 1 Sweden 0

Sol Campbell scored his first goal for England to give them a half-time advantage in their World Cup opener with Sweden in Saitama.

The Arsenal player made no mistake with a powerful header after 23 minutes following a corner from skipper David Beckham and it was no more than England deserved for a purposeful display in the opening 45 minutes.

Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side took the attack to the Swedes who were content to try and play on the counter-attack.

Little was being seen of Sweden as an attacking force and it was England who continued to look the more menacing.

Ashley Cole was having a fine game at left-back, particularly when he ventured forward, and one 30-yard drive from the Arsenal player was caught by Hedman above his head.

Another in-swinging corner from Beckham again caused problems to the Swedish defence with Ferdinand this time on the receiving end but, unlike Campbell, he was unable to get any direction into his header.

It was 40 minutes before Seaman was called into meaningful action. Magnus Svensson sent over a low cross which picked out Marcus Allback and he got his left-footed shot on target but Seaman was equal to the task away to his right.

Another great cross-field ball from Beckham found Heskey in acres of space on the left flank but a promising situation broke down after Owen was caught offside when he played a one-two with his Liverpool team-mate.

But half-time arrived with England having every reason to be satisfied with their performance in the opening 45 minutes.

Allback was only just too high with a rising effort from the right side of the penalty area after winning

the ball off Ferdinand.

Allback then became the first Swedish player to be yellow-carded for dissent after disputing a free-kick awarded to England in first-half injury-time.