OWEN RETURNS TO HAUNT ARGIES TO THE GRAVE
(Image taken from Soccernet)
Well, what can be said about England and the Argies? They've never forgiven us for the Falklands War, we've never forgiven them for the Hand of God. Even my Mum realised that this was a "so called" friendly. What it was was a chance to test out the '05-'06 England vintage against top class oppisition on neutral territory(not quite sure why the match was in Geneva, though I've heard the FA got bunged some extra cash by the Swiss), and given that Sven was reminding the media that he was the man responsible for Germany 1 England 5, a chance for the Swede to put his money where his mouth is.
So, both teams come out, both anthems get thoroughly booed and then we get down to business. Sure enough, this certainly didn't look like a typical Sven friendly, more like a full blooded heavyweight rumble, and it was only thanks to Paul Robinson that we dodged a clip's worth of bullets early on. The Three Lions gave as good as they got though and it was Owen who put the ball in the net first...only to be called offside. Later on, Crespo did likewise for the Argies, same result. England had the edge, both sides were hacking each other to bits(though there were no red cards in the game) but then it was the Argies who took advantage of a rusty Wayne Bridge to open the scoring through Crespo in the 34th minute. Fine, we've got our own deadly assassins, the one who introduced himself to the Argies first was Rooney, who first hammered the Argentinian post before, in the 39th, being fed by Gerrard and slamming the ball where it should have gone first time out.
Second half and it's more of the same early on, until Juan Riquelme put in a freekick and the England defence didn't pick up Walter Samuel, allowing him to put the Argies ahead again in the 53rd minute. Did England crumble, did we hell, the Argies getting hammered for the rest of the match. Ten minutes on the clock, on comes Peter Crouch. While not a proven top-level assassin, his height made a useful enough distraction for an ex-Liverpool man whom the Argies should have remembered all too well from when he was a teenager in '98. Not that the familiarity did them much good though, Gerrard's cross finding a free Owen in the 87th minute who pulled things level. 2-2 felt like a fair result...and then Joe Cole put in another cross in injury time and Owen headed in a winner. If this had been a wrestling match that double would have been the equivilent of one guy throwing his opponent off him, sending him spinning a few times in the air before shoving him to the deck out cold with a very loud thud.
In short, that has to be the best England friendly I've seen in the Sven era, the sort of match and result that brings to mind the chant "and now you'd better believe us...we're going to win the Cup". OK so the defence needs to be finetuned and the Argentinian fans can be pleased with their team's performance as well, bottom line for England though, we will definately mean business in Germany if we repeat these sort of performances.
Elsewhere, Scotland looked to get back on the road in a friendly at Hampden Park against the USA, a side that is heading to Germany and though not grade A, certainly can't be considered complete mugs. A tough match was in store for the Scots but despite an opening penalty by US striker Josh Wolff, Hearts defender Andy Webster equalised for Walter Smith's side to produce a solid 1-1 draw.
Despite the fact that most decent nations were playing friendlies though, the World Cup qualification picture isn't quite over with five playoff ties to be played. In the first legs of these, the Czech Republic(getting out of Norway with a 1-0 advantage), Switzerland(seeing off Turkey 2-0 in Berne), and Spain(blasting Slovakia out of Madrid to the tune of 5-1) pretty took care of business with the second leg still to be played. Further affield, the Uruguay vs Austrailia tie still looks too close to call. The Uruguayans may have seen the Aussies out of Montevideo to the tune of 1-0 but that deficit can certainly be overturned in a second leg in Oz. The only real upset that looks on the cards in in the Trinidad and Tobago vs Bahrain tie. The first leg in Port of Spain, Trinidad ended in a 1-1 draw, giving the Arabs an away goal advantage. A blown oppitunity for the Carribean side who've possibly got their work cut out now.
This ramble ends with an interesting bit of intel concerning United's win over Chelsea last weekend. Apparently the Blues bugged the United dressing room(and before Roman Abramovich sues me check this out). Then again, the original intel came out of the Sun so...it could be a pack of lies. The story's worth keeping an eye on though.
Till next time.
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