England stroll to the World Cup finals

International football is a really strange game. Fabio Capello has apparently transformed the England side from a bunch of clueless individuals with little team spirit and even less confidence, into a well organised side that play for each other and expect to win.

Impressive

England went into last night’s game against Croatia knowing that a win would see them safely through to the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer with an impressive qualifying record, although it has to be acknowledged that much of the opposition has been sub-standard..

They had a pretty strong squad to choose from with only Rio Ferdinand and Theo Walcott missing and they had the recent memory of a comprehensive 4-1 win in Croatia earlier in the campaign.

Inspirational

They had Matthew Upson who has settled into his international career but will no doubt be replaced by the definitely world class Rio Ferdinand, John Terry the inspirational skipper and Ashley Cole, who is starting to look like the fine full back he was a couple of years ago.

The multi-million pound Gareth Barry joined the world superstars Frank Lampard and Steve Gerrard and up front we could call on the talented and in-form Wayne Rooney and super-sub Jermaine Defoe. What could possibly go wrong?

Disaster

OK, it could be asked whether Rob Green, Glen Johnson, Aaron Lennon and Emile Heskey are truly international or world class players. OK, the last time England played Croatia at Wembley disaster struck and a 3-2 defeat saw them fail to qualify for Euro 2008. OK, this is England we are talking about and we have never done anything the easy way.

Well, shock of shocks, England rose to the occasion, played some really decent football and did things the easy way. They strolled to a 5-1 victory against a Croatia side who were missing some of their big players but looked surprisingly poor none the less.

Terrible

I’m not sure if England were exceptionally good or Croatia were absolutely terrible. In truth, it was probably a bit of both.

From the first kick-off England were totally in control. Every time Aaron Lennin ran with the ball towards the Croatia defence there was abject fear and panic. It came as no surprise when he was hacked down in the area to allow Frank Lampard to put England ahead from the spot.

Exquisite

The second goal came when Gerrard fed the ball wide to Lennon and then drifted around the back of the Croatia defence for Lennon to find with an exquisite cross which he expertly headed home.

Half-time came at a good time for Croatia and Bilic made two changes to try to stem the tide of England attacks. It didn’t work.

Maligned

Frank Lampard got his second and England’s third when he headed home a super cross from the much maligned Glen Johnson and then Steve Gerrard headed home a clever cross from Wayne Rooney to make it four. Does anyone know if Gerrard has ever scored two headed goals in one game before?

Rob Green was something of a spectator but he got his chance to shine when he made a wonderful one handed save from a header but then reverted to type when he spilled the rebound at the feet of Eduardo who made it 4-1.

Great

Croatia keeper Vedran Runje wasn’t having too bad a night until he sliced a back pass into the path of Wayne Rooney who couldn’t miss to make it 5-1 and end the scoring. That was Rooney’s twenty-fifth England goal and took him ahead of the great Geoff Hurst in the goalscoring charts.

All in all this was a very good performance from an England team who have been transformed by Capello since the very bleak days under McClaren. It is difficult to get too carried away as Croatia really were bad.

Impressive

However, that made it eight wins out of eight and no matter how poor the opposition, that is an impressive record. You can only beat what is in front of you and at the moment, England are doing just that.