Croatia 1 - England 4

There’s a scoreline you never thought you would have seen judging on recent performances. Credit to the players, it was honestly the best performance from an England side that I have seen for probably two years.

In the build-up to this game, England were heavily criticised for their performance in Andorra, criticism that they probably deserved for not being able to inflict a crushing goal difference against a team that barely made it out of their own half (David James incidentally touched the ball six times the entire match). So as the players waited in the tunnel at the The Maksimir Stadium before the match, nobody would have argued with you if you felt the team would be torn apart by the apparent 5th best team in the world.

Walking in half way through the first half (I was having my hair cut short at the time), you could see that Capello had studied the Croatian style and suitably trained his players to take the heat to their opponents, stopping any flowing football dead in it’s tracks.

In my opinion, Theo Walcott seemed way off the pace and seemed a little overawed by the occasion at first, but with the rest of the England team feeding him the ball at every opportunity, he soon got his chance to repay the teams confidence. Receiving the ball on the edge of the eighteen yard box and taking a steadying touch, he lashed home the first of his three goals that night, justifying the reasons why he was picked ahead of the ageing David Beckham.

Wayne Rooney took the first forty five minutes to get into the game but in the second half, he didn’t stray too far from his striking counterpart, Emile Heskey, allowing him to feed off flick on’s and receive the ball to feet in dangerous areas, not 50 years away from goal.

I think what this performance showed was that there is one attribute that can take apart any world class team……..PACE.

With Walcott, Rooney, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole and even Emile Heskey able to cover the turf rapidly, the Croatians were forced into mistakes when pressed and on the back foot when England came forward. It shows that with a good tactician and a youthful squad with accomplished heads, you can beat any team, not just with an odd goal, you can truly take them apart.

The Goals

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England Fail To Qualify For Euro 2008

Am I surprised? No.

For years the English have lived off the back of our famous 1966 win……shame it was 41 years ago now. The recent championships that England have attended have seen them stuggle to get past the group stages only to be knocked out on penalties. The masses get excited, purchase the flags, bunk off work to watch the games and with real expectation that this year could be it, watch England fail.

There’s no excusing England, they drew with the likes of Macedonia and then went off to Russia and lost. Israel even threw them a lifeline by beating Russia, all we needed to do was secure a draw against an in-form Croatian team (who incidentally had already qualified).

Watching the first half last night, I watched as the new England keeper Scott Carson throws the ball into his own net, I watch Joleon Lescott and Sol Campbell panic everytime they get the ball and depise the whole of the midfield as they get completely outplayed by a more organised outfit.

It’s not that the players don’t care, I don’t believe even someone on £100,000 a week is prepared to shrug off a dismal qualifying campaign. The manager shifted the team around far to many times, relied on big names and not in-form players and basically set us up to lose. England when they did play, tried to hard and didnt let the football come naturally, everything seemed forced and laboured.

McLaren is gone, hopefully so will a few players like Owen, Lampard and Beckham when we get a new manager. Who do you think? I think its going to be Mourinho, possibly shading Capello.