9:15am Monday 13th October 2008
By Scott Wilson
OCTOBER 2006, and England are at home to lowly Macedonia in their third game of the European Championships qualifying programme.
They have come into the match on the back of a comfortable victory over Andorra and an impressive away win in the former Yugoslavia but, at half-time, the scoreline is goalless and England have not had a single shot on target.
Manager Steve McClaren waits until the 70th minute to make his first substitution, his players are unable to make a breakthrough and, by the final whistle, England have dropped two crucial points.
By the following November, they will fail to qualify for Euro 2008 by a one-point margin.
October 2008, and England are at home to lowly Kazakhstan in their third game of the World Cup qualifying programme.
They have come into the match on the back of a comfortable victory over Andorra and an impressive away win in the former Yugoslavia but, at half-time, the scoreline is goalless and England have not had a single shot on target.
Manager Fabio Capello changes both his formation and his personnel at the interval, his players run riot in the second half and, by the final whistle, England have secured maximum points for the third game in a row. It might not have been as exhilarating as last month’s victory in Croatia, but by next November, perhaps we will look on Saturday’s second-half performance as the display that secured a place in South Africa.
“My experience tells me you can have games like this,” said Capello. “And the important thing is that you win them in the end. I am happy for the result and especially the second half.
“The result was the allimportant thing and we got a good win. We have nine points now from three games and have scored plenty of goals. It’s job done.”
If Capello’s side make it four wins out of four in Belarus on Wednesday night, the Italian will be able to reflect on a satisfying start to his tenure as England boss.
But as Michael Owen was told in no uncertain terms last week, ‘goals are sometimes not enough’. England scored five on Saturday, yet the lack of cohesion in much of their play represented regression from the standards that were set in Zagreb.
Indeed, for much of the opening 45 minutes, this was back to the bad old days of cluttered confusion on the Wembley turf.
The cause of the confusion, as it always seems to be, was the ageold conundrum of how to fit England’s best attackers and midfielders into the same starting line-up.
Steven Gerrard’s absence in Croatia meant the problem briefly solved itself.
Presented with a fitagain Gerrard to face Kazakhstan, however, Capello fell into the trap that had snared both of his predecessors.
Gerrard played in a midfield three with Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry, and with a dispiriting inevitability, the trio spent most of the first half getting in each other’s way. Kazakhstan’s reluctance to commit too many men forward rendered Barry redundant, and neither Lampard nor Gerrard felt secure enough to push too far up the field.
Further ahead, Wayne Rooney was stationed on the left of an attacking threesome that also included Emile Heskey and Theo Walcott.
Walcott threatened with a series of early forays, but the abiding image of the opening 45 minutes was the sight of a disillusioned Rooney pushing Kazakh defender Ruslan Baltiyev in the chest.
The Manchester United striker had produced a manof- the-match performance off Heskey’s shoulder in Croatia; here, he was simply frustrated on the flank.
Having called for patience before the game, Capello could hardly complain when his players’ desultory first-half efforts were greeted by boos at the interval, but to his enormous credit, the England boss set about changing things immediately at half-time.
Off went the underemployed Barry, on came the energetic Shaun Wright- Phillips, enabling Rooney to revert to his preferred position in the hole behind Heskey.
The result was a much more cohesive second-half display, in which Rooney scored twice as the pace of both Walcott and Wright- Phillips eventually ripped open a Kazakh defence that had looked all but impregnable before the break.
“I know my role and I know what’s expected of me there,” said Rooney, who clearly prefers to play in a central position rather than be stationed on a flank. “I think that benefits me whenever I play.
“I played more towards the left in the first half, but in the second half I was able to play just off Emile. It was two different roles to play in, but it was easier to get on the ball and get chances in the second half.
“I’ve always said my game is not just about goals, but it’s obviously better when I’m scoring and I think my international record is about a goal every other game now, which isn’t too bad.”
England’s second-half performance represented a marked improvement from their efforts before the break, but it was still blighted by an occasional bout of complacency and carelessness.
One such aberration should have seen Kazakhstan break the deadlock in the 47th minute – Tanat Nusserbayev blazed over from the edge of the sixyard box after Ashley Cole had gone missing upfield – and the visitors were eventually handed a goal on a plate 20 minutes later.
Cole’s wretched punt across the face of his own penalty area left Zhambyl Kukeyev in the clear, and the Kazakh midfielder drilled a precise low finish past David James.
England were already two goals to the good at that stage, with Lampard’s setpiece delivery having proved pivotal in both.
Rio Ferdinand nodded in the Chelsea midfielder’s 52nd-minute corner, before Kazakh defender Alexandr Kuchma glanced Lampard’s left-wing free-kick past his own goalkeeper shortly afterwards.
The booing returned at 2-1, but three goals in the final 14 minutes ensured that a carnival atmosphere was in evidence at the end.
Rooney pulled away from his marker to nod Wes Brown’s cross into the bottom left-hand corner.
He then slotted home a precise low finish after the Kazakh defence had failed to clear substitute David Beckham’s free-kick.
Another replacement, Jermain Defoe, completed the rout, racing on to Heskey’s through ball before sliding a clinical shot past an exposed Alexandr Mokin.
By that stage, an exhausted Kazakhstan side were dead on their feet.
England had started slowly, but like Capello’s eight-match reign, the momentum had successfully built.
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