It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool. To draw one eminently winnable group match is unfortunate, to draw two begins to look as if England are six kinds of crap, if Lady Bracknell will forgive the paraphrase.

Clearly today was one of the best days for English football in recent years – before the game kicked off. Not only did Germany lose, but they only went and missed a bleeding penalty, while the USA were unfortunate to draw 2-2 with Plucky Slovenia, or however we are currently patronising a side that on the evidence of their next opponents' performance today could hand England's backsides to them without breaking sweat.

England could barely have been more fortunate with the build-up. No one really expected Fabio Capello's side to have learned how to pass or anything since last Saturday but they seemed to have mastered the art of remote delegation, somehow contriving to ensure that several obliging nations (and the odd referee) helped them out of the hole they were in, though possibly not out of a German-shaped one threatening to engulf them further down the road. Then again, maybe it won't engulf them, if Algeria draw with the USA as Venus is rising and the Moon moves into talking out of Uranus. To be candid, the possible permutations of where we go from here are as clear as mud, which is the only possible way England could feel even dimly optimistic about their chances.

They managed a comically unwatchable draw against a side who have been dismissed as the worst in the World Cup. If this was an attempt to restore hope to a nation, it could scarcely have been less effective had a blubbing Steven Gerrard turned to the camera four minutes in and mouthed "I want my mum". Fabio Capello is fast cementing his reputation as the Betamax Eriksson (at least the latter assisted England to quarter-finals) and at the current rate of decline he will go into England's final group match one brolly short of a Steve McClaren.

Before this game Wayne Rooney – remember him? – said it was all about the win and that he wasn't bothered about football that was beautiful. Ideally, though, it would be nice if an England performance was not something you could look at only via its reflection in a shield, for fear of being turned to stone. That simply doesn't look like happening within the foreseeable future, let alone this World Cup.

There is a scene in The Office when Gareth is on the phone to the manufacturers of his calculator. "I've just got a complaint from a very important client," he tells them, "saying that the figures I gave him were wrong, and … yeah, well, basically I've checked all other possibilities and it's come down to the calculator."

It is impossible to escape the feeling that at some point not far away – perhaps even tomorrow – Capello will pick up the phone to Umbro and say: "I've just lost a reasonably important game of football, and basically I've checked all other possibilities and it's come down to the shirt."

He would have a point. One can only observe, yet again, how perfectly good, even excellent players seem automatically to malfunction the minute they don the accursed garment. The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. Psychological meltdown is now part of the warp and weft of its wretched fibres and it will clearly take someone other than Capello to fix it.

Whatever Rooney whinged, there can be no complaints about the crowd. Cape Town's stunning Green Point Stadium was packed with England-supporting fans, draped in their flags and resonating with the sound of their Sun-branded vuvuzelas. Incidentally, in light of the criminal charges brought against the two Dutch women for "ambush marketing" at Soccer City this week, the Sun's decision to force hundreds of promotional vuvuzelas on matchgoers seems a clear attempt to brand up some cause célèbre of their own. Traditionally, of course, the paper has achieved this by providing plastic St George's Cross tommy helmets to people who later wear them whilst hurling cafeteria furniture across European piazzas – but it's a different sort of travelling fan here, so one can only salute the change of tack. And at least the court cases will give England fans a continuing interest in South Africa 2010.