PRE­TO­RIA – The com­pact de­fence that proved so ef­fec­tive against Eng­land won't be enough when Al­ge­ria takes on the Unit­ed States in a de­ci­sive Group C match to­day. That's why coach Rabah Saadane isn't en­tire­ly sure about stick­ing to the same line­up that held a frus­trat­ed Eng­land to a 0-0 draw. "The sec­ond op­tion is per­haps to make a change," Saadane said. "And it will be with the for­wards." Most like­ly that means rein­tro­duc­ing strik­er Rafik Dje­bour in front of Al­ge­ria's five-man mid­field.

Dje­bour played in the 1-0 loss to group leader Slove­nia but was re­placed by the less of­fen­sive Karim Mat­mour against Eng­land. Any­thing less than vic­to­ry will spell the end of their tour­na­ment, and even if they win, the North Africans could be elim­i­nat­ed if group leader Slove­nia los­es nar­row­ly to Eng­land. The Unit­ed States will ad­vance to the round of 16 if it beats Al­ge­ria, while a draw would suf­fice if Eng­land los­es to Slove­nia. If the Unit­ed States and Eng­land both draw, the Amer­i­cans would ad­vance pro­vid­ed they end up with more goals scored than the Eng­lish – cur­rent­ly the U.S. has three goals, while Eng­land has one.

So count on Unit­ed States coach Bob Bradley to be keep­ing one eye the ac­tion at Lof­tus Vers­feld in Pre­to­ria and the oth­er on the score in the Eng­land-Slove­nia match, which will be played si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. "It's im­por­tant to know, es­pe­cial­ly as you get in­to the sec­ond half," Bradley said Tues­day. "So we'll be on top of that and fac­tor that in­for­ma­tion. But we cer­tain­ly un­der­stand from the start that the idea for us to go out and try to win the game." So far, the Amer­i­cans have sal­vaged two draws, af­ter drop­ping an ear­ly goal to Eng­land and go­ing down 2-0 in the first half against Slove­nia. (AP)