Steven Gerrard: England's World Cup draw is near-perfect

Steven Gerrard has welcomed a 'near-perfect' draw, and issued a rallying cry for his team-mates to secure the maximum points that will get England's World Cup off to a flyer.

The national side were given one of the easiest groups in the tournament, when the selections for the opening round were made yesterday, with games against the USA, Algeria and Slovenia.

And even more importantly, Fabio Capello's team have avoided all the real big-guns left in the competition UNTIL the semi final stage, which is a massive bonus.

In keeping with his manager's philosophy, Gerrard refuses to get carried away at this stage, but he admitted that he couldn't ask for more, and confirmed that England must now look for the perfect start with a clean sweep of victories in their group.

"What I didn't want was to come up against the unknown, and we have avoided that, and we have avoided some of the really hard groups, like the one Brazil find themselves in," the Liverpool skipper said.

"We have played two of the sides in our group under Fabio Capello - and beaten them both. So we know what to expect, and we know what we have to do to beat them.

"The target, without question is to get maximum points. You know every team that gets to this stage is a good side, but we also know that we can be very confident of winning the group.

"It is an opportunity to get our tournament off to the best start, and get out confidence going. First of all, you want to avoid any really big nations, and we've done that."

England were the victims of perhaps the greatest World Cup shock of all time when they lost to the USA in 1950, and the current American side is emerging as a strong outfit, with plenty of Premier League experience.

But Gerrard believes England have the measure of all their initial opponents, and he is also incredibly happy that the likes of Brazil, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Holland and the Ivory Coast - who make up the list of favourites - are ALL in the bottom half of the draw.

That means Capello's side won't have to face any of them until the semi final stage, with only Germany, and the faltering Argentina and France offering a threat in the earlier stages.

And while Gerrard can't afford to let himself think that far ahead, he admits it is a real bonus for the national team.

"I am really encouraged by the draw,it is all we could ask. There are no surprises and it's been really kind, even beyond the first group stage.

"We have to be professional and show the right attitude, because even though we'll be massive favourites you know the other teams in our group will see England as a huge scalp - almost their own World Cup final.

"But we have to be confident of getting maximum points, otherwise we shouldn't be going. And that can give us the confidence to progress, given that a lot of the favourites to win the trophy are in the oher half.

 "I was worried about some of the African teams, especially because they can be a bit of an unknown factor, and I think Algeria may prove our hardest test because of that.

"But the other African nations in our half, Ghana and Nigeria, we know a lot of them, so the route to the later stages is pretty straightforward because it won't hold massive surprises, which is all we can ask.

"The manager will stress though, that we can't get caught looking too far ahead, so for it's a case of being happy with the draw, aiming for maximum points, and then seeing where it takes us."