ENGLAND CHILL OUT IN THE CARRIBEAN

 

(Image taken from BBC)

The last time we faced Trinidad and Tobago was in a 2006 World Cup Group B match at the Frankenstadion. Well the first half proved to be an iffy affair, as I said at the time, clearly not enough shooting practice for England. Trini weren't able to do much either though untill late on in the half when we dodged a serious bullet. That meant it was all to do in the second half so subs were made and we finally started to get our act together but as the clock ticked down we were still waiting for an actual goal. Then Crouch and Gerrard hit the net, allowing us to wrap up the three points and secure a place in the knockout stages of that tournament with a game to spare.

This time round it wasn't such a serious affair. Trini were looking for some serious friendly opposition before starting their World Cup qualifying campaign, Fabio was looking for an excuse to do some experimenting and OK...so the FA also thought it was worth twisting Jack Warner's(of all people) arm for a few votes in the 2018 World Cup hosting campaign. Fine, so the Three Lions hauled themselves accross the Atlantic to the Hasely Crawford stadium at a point when we'd have rather been prepping for Euro 2008. With a load of big name withdrawals, the starting XI was largely overhauled. Johnson at right back, Rio and Woodgate in central defence, Bridge left back, Gerrard and Barry centre mid, Downing right mid and Defoe and Dean Ashton(making his debut) up front. Becks skippered the side for one last time.

Well the opening minutes gave a pretty good indication of how the match was going to go down. This is the post-Dwight Yorke era for Trini and their defence was loose and leaky and after one messy moment at the other end Downing fed Bridge in the 12th minute who crossed to Barry to score his first England goal. That was followed up in the 16th minute by a Downing cross to Defoe, 2-0. Credit to Trini they did have their moment attacking wise before half time but really this was England's show. Unless you counted a certain someone waiting in the wings, the only halfway familar names from the Trini lineups were players from our lower leagues!

The second half saw a range of England subs, one of those was Bentley and in the 49th minute he crossed to Defoe who grabbed his second goal of the night. From there on in the game started to wind down. Both sides made subs and it really became a case of Fabio seeing which fringe players could do the business. Given that he likes his sides to play keep ball rather than show off their dribbling skills, he wasn't always that happy. T+T got to show off a bit themselves with Kyleem Highland giving us the odd problem but never looked like they were really going to get back into the game. We could have got a fourth later on. but didn't. We did what we needed to do, got the result, can't complain.

Elsewhere, Wales faced the Netherlands in the PSV Stadium. Getting anything out of this match was always going to be a long shot for John Toshack's side and sure enough the Dutch was soon dominating the game and went into half time with the lead thanks to Arjen Robben and that trashed the Welsh Plan A of going all-out defence. Wesley Schneijder then made it 2-0 and with the Welsh limited to only the occasional counter it soon became clear which side is going to Euro 2008 and which side was never going to get anywhere near it. The back end ended with both sides on cruise mode. A definate learning experience for this young Welsh side.

Well, that's it from England(and the other British national teams). Euro 2008's coming up. From an English perspective it'll be wierd. It should still involve some quality football though.

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