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In their last outing, England were shown by Spain just how far away from being the best they are. Despite that, the World Cup qualifying campaign is going as well as it possibly could for Fabio Capello and his over-hyped, over-paid men. This warm-up game sees them take on Slovakia at Wembley.
England will not be playing Ledley King after the embarrassing club v country argument earlier in the week and several other players, including Shaun Wright-Phillips and Peter Crouch, are carrying knocks. On the positive side, Rio Ferdinand, Steve Gerrard and Wayne Rooney are all likely to be back after missing the Spain game. Manchester United keeper Ben Foster may win his second cap.
The Slovakia side was formed in 1993 after the break up of Czechoslovakia and they have so far failed to qualify for the final stages of any competition. Their two previous games this year have seen them lose to Ukraine and Cyprus.
SoccerNews prediction: 4-0
World Cup qualifiers
Spain are probably the best team in the world at the moment. They are without the wonderful Iniesta but still have an array of talent that most other countries could only dream about.
Having said that, they won’t be under-estimating the Turkish side who themselves had a pretty decent European Championships. They made it to the semi-finals and let’s not forget that Turkey were only beaten in the dying seconds by Germany.
Spain are top of the group and have a 100% record in qualification so far but Turkey, in second place, are also unbeaten. They are four points adrift however after only managing draws against Belgium and Estonia.
Turkey will fight but Spain should be too strong.
SoccerNews prediction: 2-0
Italy may play Vincenzo Iaquinta from Juventus as an out and out striker in Montenegro. The superb goal he scored against Chelsea in the Champions League shows that he is more than capable of fulfilling that role.
Italy only managed to win 2-1 in the fixture between these two when they were at home, and although Italy are top of the group and unbeaten with three wins out of four, Montenegro are unbeaten in the other two games they have played. They have had impressive draws against Bulgaria and the Republic of Ireland and might just fancy themselves to get something out of this one.
If they do, it will be a momentous occasion for the team who only came into existence in 2006 and are playing in their first ever set of qualifying matches.
SoccerNews prediction: 0-1
For an outsider, it is a little difficult to understand how Raymond Domenech still has his job with the French national side. OK, he took them to the 2006 world cup final, but since then, it has all been down hill.
They qualified for Euro 2008 but only just. Two defeats to Scotland saw them almost lose out to them overall. Once they got to the finals, their performance was an embarrassment. They finished bottom of their group following a draw with Romania and comprehensive defeats to Holland and Italy.
Most people expected Domenech to go after the tournament but somehow he clung on to his job.
In this qualification campaign so far things have not gone well. A win against Serbia has been somewhat overshadowed by a draw with Romania and a humiliating defeat in Austria.
France’s opponents in this one, Lithuania, are a team on the up. They lost in Serbia but victories over Romania, Austria and the Faroes, see them sitting pretty in second place some five points above their opponents.
Surely France can’t lose this one…can they?
SoccerNews prediction: 1-1
Scotland have had a nightmare build up to this daunting trip to Holland. Stephen McManus has been withdrawn through injury and he joins David Weir, Paul Hartley, Kirk Broadfoot, Kris Commons, James McFadden, Shaun Maloney, Barry Robson, Kevin Thomson, Lee Miller, Alan Hutton and Garry O’Connor on the missing list.
Barry Ferguson should be fit and manager George Burley has decided to go with goalkeeper Allan McGregor rather than the £9 million Sunderland misfit Craig Gordon.
Holland were pretty impressive at times at the European Championship and in the likes of Arjen Robben and Klaas Jan Huntelaar they have great players in great form.
It is difficult to see beyond a fairly straight forward Holland win, but I would have said the same about France when Scotland visited them in the last set of qualifiers.
SoccerNews prediction: 3-0
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