England 1 Italy 2 player ratings: Who scored higher - Raheem Sterling or Andrea Pirlo?

A look at the performances in this Group D meeting

The clever passes are too plentiful to remember, but the dummy for the opening goal impossible to forget. 7 (Getty Images)

England's World Cup campaign finally got underway as they narrowly lost to Italy in an exciting encounter.

Raheem Sterling almost scored a screamer early on, with even the BBC briefly registering it as a goal before the world realised it had hit the side netting.

However it was Italy who took the lead through Claudio Marchisio and a clever corner routine.

England equalised almost immediately though through Daniel Sturridge and went into half time at 1-1.

In the end though Mario Balotelli put Italy back in front early in the second half and England never managed to level things back up.

Here, we take a look at how the players rated...

Who do you think was the stand out player? Let us know in the comments below.