ANOTHER ENGLAND COMEBACK DOWNS URUGUAY

 

(Image taken from BBC)

 

Well it's another England friendly, actually a pretty confusing one. OK so we're going to be up against Paraguay in the World Cup in Germany but given that we beat the Argies in our last match, did we really need to go up against a second South American side in a row? Having said that, Uruguay were always going to give us a match, the fact that Diego Forlan and crew aren't heading to Germany and Ecuador are defies football logic. Last time the two sides met was at Wembley back in '95, a goalless draw with no highlights I can remember. Last time England won, Geoff Hurst hit the net in a 2-1 win in Montevideo- the year was 1969.

Right now, Sven had to deal with this Anfield friendly with Owen and Lampard both injured so called up Darren Bent and Michael Carrick to fill in the gaps. Otherwise what looked like the best team he could lay his hands on started the match.

It wasn't long before England were running the show, with Bent in particular proving a quality wildcard on his debut. England didn't have it all their own way though as Forlan was also keeping Robinson busy. England did have the edge though, firing in a load of crosses, corners and airshots(one from Beckham in particular) with the visitors relying on long shots. No one could have expected any of those shots to come off...but in the 26th minute a Uruguay corner came to midfielder Omar Pouso who fired a bullet into the top corner of the England net. A few mins later and Wayne Bridge got himself injured after crashing into Robinson. England came up with a few more attacks before half time but didn't get anywhere.

In the second half England were still hammering the Uruguay goal but still coming up empty. However with Uruguay not seeing any attacking action, an equaliser always looked inevitable and when Shaun Wright-Philips and Peter Crouch came on for Becks and Rooney we turned up the tempo. Wrighty junior may not see much action for Chelsea but the guy was soon forcing Uruguay to double team him they were having such nightmares. Take notes for the World Cup squad Sven. The goal finally came in the 75th minute though, and it was identical to the move the Scousers pulled on United in the FA Cup. Same scorer(Crouch - for his first England goal), same ground, same end, Joe Cole the provider, completely different reaction from me. Only question now was, could England break down Uruguay again for the win and the answer was yes. Wright-Philips cross to Joe Cole in injury time, Cole lobs the goalie. 2-1 England and thank you very much. Defeat in this match would have been annoying.

Elsewhere, Scotland went up against Switzerland at Hampden Park...and got busted. Tranquillo Barnetta opened the scoring for the Swiss, Daniel Gygax made it two, Kenny Miller pulled one back for the Scots but Ricardo Cabanas finished them off. Major oops on the Scots' part.

Wales did a better job at the Millenium Stadium. If Paraguay were looking to show what they could do against a British side ahead of the World Cup game against England then the conclusion from this game had to be 'not much'. The South Americans were soaked up smoothly by an experimental home side even though they were the ones doing most of the attacking. This could well be three points in the bank in Germany.

At Windsor Park, Northern Ireland pulled off a 1-0 win against fellow small fry Estonia. Hibs striker Ivan Sproule was the guy who hit the winner and the Baltic side were lucky to get home without getting completely ripped apart.

Finally a very welcome result for Republic of Ireland who blew Sweden out of Dublin to the tune of 3-0 in Steve Staunton's first match as manager. Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Liam Miller(currently with Leeds)got the goals, generally trashed the side who will in theory be England's toughest World Cup group opponents but who's current form is rough as hell. Maybe we'll actually beat them in Germany!

I'm going to leave you with an entry in Christian O'Connell's latest England song competition. The DJ formerly ran a competition for listeners to his old XFM breakfast show to compose tracks for Euro 2004. Now with Virgin he's doing the same thing again for the World Cup. Matt Kent, a guy I met one time in Romania decided to try his hand and came up with this pretty impressive(particularly as the competition so far is generally hopeless)effort called "St George's Goal Machine". Enjoy

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