A crass goalkeeping blunder by Robert Green gifted the United States a famous point against Fabio Capello’s England at Rustenberg on Saturday.

England were given a dream start after only four minutes when captain Stephen Gerrard converted Emile Heskey’s neat reverse pass and slotted the ball past American keeper Tim Howard with the outside of his right foot.

But England failed to build on that start, not helped by the early withdrawal of a clearly out-of-sorts James Milner after a torrid half-hour on England’s left.

The United States had rarely threatened themselves, however. And Clint Dempsey’s shot from the edge of the penalty area five minutes before the break wasn’t threatening either, until the ball inexplicably bounced off Green’s stiff right hand and dribbled over the line behind him.

England fashioned enough chances after the interval to have rendered Green’s faux-pas irrelevant. But Heskey hit a glorious opportunity straight at Howard on 54 minutes and substitute Shaun Wright-Phillips made matters equally easy for Howard with his right-foot effort late on.

And matters could have been worse, bringing back memories of the USA’s famous 1-0 win over England in the 1950 World Cup finals.

Fabio Capello was forced into a further reshuffle at the interval when centre-back Ledley King succumbed to a groin strain.

And replacement Jamie Carragher was beaten for pace on 64 minutes by Hull City striker Jozy Altidore.

But Green made partial amends for his earlier howler by pushing Altidore’s right-foot shot onto the post and away from danger