Argentina eased the pressure on coach Diego Maradona with a 1-0 victory at Germany on Wednesday night, and Spain heaped more on France coach Raymond Domenech with a 2-0 triumph at Les Bleus on a big night of World Cup warmups.
Twenty-eight of the 32 World Cup teams were in action, with the United States losing 2-1 at the Netherlands. England, which plays the U.S. in its opener on June 12, rallied for a 3-1 victory over visiting Egypt, and defending champion Italy was held to a 0-0 tie by Cameroon at Monte Carlo, Monaco.
In a late game, Mexico played defeated New Zealand 2-0 before 90,526 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
At Munich, Gonzalo Higuain scored in first-half injury time to lift Argentina, which struggled during qualifying.
"It was (like) a World Cup game," Maradona said. "The lads played a great match. I've nothing but praise for all of them."
Argentina defender Martin Demichelis broke a cheekbone when he was hit accidentally in the face by the knee of Germany captain Michael Ballack.
At Saint-Denis, David Villa scored in the 21st minute and Sergio Ramos just before halftime for Spain, which had been 0-5-1 in France since a 3-1 win at Lyon in October 1968. Some of the French fans called for the resignation of Domenech, whose team needed a blatant Thierry Henry hand ball in a playoff against Ireland to qualify.
At Wembley, Peter Crouch entered in the second half and scored twice, and fellow substitute Shaun Wright-Phillips added a goal for England.
In a warmup for its World Cup opener against the United States on June 12, England fell behind when Mohamed Zidan scored in the 23rd minute after a mistake by defender Matthew Upson.
England's players were booed at the half, and at the start of the second half Crouch replaced Jermain Defoe and Michael Carrick took over from Frank Lampard.
Crouch tied it in the 56th off Gareth Barry's cross, Wright-Phillips scored from a rebound in the 74th and Crouch got his second goal from Wright-Phillips' cross five minutes later.
After Mohammed Zidan had stunned England with a 23rd-minute goal, Crouch tied it in the 56th off Gareth Barry's cross, Wright-Phillips scored from a rebound in the 74th and Crouch got his second goal from Wright-Phillips' cross five minutes later.
"I said to the players to press more to win the ball back quickly and in the second half we did that," England coach Fabio Capello said. "Crouch is a big option for me because sometimes you can play long ball. Today we didn't, and he played very well with one touch, two touches. In the second half he made the difference."
Portugal beat China 2-0 as Cristiano Ronaldo set up Hugo Almeida's goal in the 36th minute and Almeida added another in second-half injury time.
Lee Dong-gook and substitute Kwak Tae-hwi scored to give South Korea to a 2-0 victory over Ivory Coast in London. The Ivorians are looking for a new coach after firing Vahid Halihodzic last month, and former England and Mexico coach Sven-Goran Eriksson was also at the game along with former Juventus coach Ciro Ferrara.
Serbia won 3-0 at Algeria on goals by Marko Pantelic, Zdravko Kuzmanovic and Zoran Tosic. Slovenia routed visiting Qatar 4-1 as Milivoje Novakovic, Bostjan Cesar, Andraz Kirm and Bojan Jokic scored. Emre Gungor and Hamit Altintop gave Turkey a 2-0 win over visiting Honduras.
At the Rose Bowl, Javier Hernandez and Carlos Vela scored in a five-minute span of the second half for Mexico.
Also, Australia, Kuwait and Jordan became the final teams to qualify for next year's Asian Cup.
Australia beat Indonesia 1-0 on Mark Milligan's goal in the 42nd minute at Brisbane to top Group B and advance with Kuwait, which tied 0-0 at Oman. Jordan defeated Singapore 2-1 on Anas Bani Yaseen's tiebreaking goal in the 61st minute at Amman to finish second in Group E behind Iran.
