Posts Tagged ‘Sweden’
John Toshack to sound out Wales team over venue for England qualifier
• Millennium Stadium may be shunned in favour of smaller venue
• Toshack predicts nations will struggle to agree fixture dates
The Wales manager, John Toshack, will consult his players before deciding whether to play their home Euro 2012 qualifier with England in the Millennium Stadium or a smaller and more intimidating ground.
Wales are in the same group as Fabio Capello’s side in addition to Switzerland, Montenegro and Bulgaria. Holding the match at the Millennium Stadium, with its capacity of nearly 75,000, would mean more revenue and less headaches in terms of security.
Toshack, however, admits other options to consider are the new Cardiff City Stadium (capacity 27,000) and Swansea’s Liberty complex (22,000) where they host Sweden in a friendly on 3 March.
Toshack said: “Things have changed a bit recently for us. We have got two other stadiums now. We were well pleased with the treatment we got from the Cardiff people when we played Scotland there recently.
“Swansea have a new stadium as well and we have been treated well there and play Sweden there shortly. You have to consider the atmosphere factor as well. It is early days yet. We have a fixture meeting on 15 March when it will be decided what dates we play but you don’t have to announce the venue until 90 days before a fixture.
“I will be interested to get the players’ views on that subject as well so we have got a little bit of time to decide.”
Toshack concedes England will be favourites to qualify but believes the battle for second spot is wide open. “Looking at our group, I think it is the most wide open of all of them. England will be clear favourites but I think the other four nations are all in contention.
“Between the four of us there is not a great deal to choose at all. It is difficult for anyone to predict the positions the teams will finish in. There are no ‘gimme’ fixtures for anyone. England are favourites but none of the teams are superpowers.”
Toshack locked horns with Capello just once when rival managers in Spain during the 1990s, but believes he can lead England to a successful World Cup.
“I sat next to Capello on the plane on the way over for the draw yesterday and we had a good two and a half hour conversation. On the way back he sat at the back, I sat at the front and we never said a word.
“Seriously, I am sure there will be an awful lot of interest in the game and I can see them having a good World Cup as well. Hopefully they will come back with 10 injuries and we can pick them off in September. You never know. For our players, the prospect of playing England at Wembley is a terrific incentive. If our young players get more game time in, and progress as we think they are capable of, it will be great.”
Toshack’s main concern is that Wales have more luck with injuries than in their World Cup qualifying campaign. “When you look at us and England, we have 11 players who play in the Premier League and two of them are goalkeepers. You can see the difficulties we have with four or five injuries. We need a bit of good fortune on the injury front which we never had the last time around.
“If we make mistakes or pick the wrong team, or concede late on, that’s down to us, but we would just hope to have our best players available.”
Toshack believes it will be more difficult for teams to come to an agreement over when to stage fixtures given the new guidelines which allow weekend games to be played on Friday or Saturday and all midweek fixtures on Tuesdays.
“I can see that being difficult this time around for all the groups. I can see a lot of these meetings to decide the fixtures being thrown out and it all going to Uefa to decide. A lot of countries are not accustomed to playing on Friday evening and won’t want Saturday-Tuesday either.
“In this country, our players are accustomed to playing Saturday-Tuesdays so I can see fixture meetings this time around having a lot of problems and not being easy to come to an agreement.”
For full story go to here
Uefa Euro 2012 qualifying draw – as it happened
All the plastic ball-by-plastic ball action as Europe’s national sides learned their fate in Warsaw
Preview: Poland and Ukraine are the hosts for Euro 2012 and today, representatives of the 53 member associations who’ll be duking it out Royal Rumble style to qualify for the finals, which kick off on 8 June 2012, will gather in Warsaw to learn their fate.
Today’s draw takes place in the Polish capital’s Palace of Culture and Science and will feature 51 plastic balls (Poland and Ukraine qualify automatically as hosts, but holders Spain must qualify the hard way) being swirled, plucked and cracked open by a dizzying array of tanned and well fed men in fetching blazers.
There are 14 berths at Euro 2012 up for grabs and nine groups will be formed in today’s qualifying draw: six groups of six teams and three of five. The seedings are formed on the basis of the Uefa national team coefficient ranking system, with holders Spain automatically top seeded. Each group will contain one side from the first five pots and six of them will also feature a team from Pot 6.
The nine group winners and the best runner-up qualify directly for the final tournament. The eight remaining runners-up will contest two-legged play-offs to decide who gets the four remaining places. You can see who’s in which pot below, where I’ve highlighted the five home nations. England are in Pot One, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland are in Pot Three and Wales are in Pot Four.
Pot One: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Croatia, Portugal, France, Russia
Pot Two: Greece, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey, Denmark, Slovakia, Romania
Pot Three: Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Pot Four: Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Belgium, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Cyprus
Pot Five: Montenegro, Albania, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Iceland, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein
Pot Six: Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Malta, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino
The draw hasn’t started yet, but on Eurosport they’re broadcasting a pre-recorded interview with Uefa president Michel Platini. He says that today’s preview is a “bit of a preamble” and that they don’t want to “outshine the World Cup”. He says there’s been problems with the infrastructures in some of the smaller cities set to host games during 2012: hotels, airport runways, stadia etc and so on. He says he hopes that Euro 2012 will be a different type of event to those staged in countries such as Germany.
An email: “I am genuinely puzzled that Slovenia, who have qualified for the World Cup, are in Pot Four along with Macedonia, Wales and other luminaries, and below Pot Three, where none of the participants have qualified for anything for a good long time,” writes Richard Woods. “Russia, who lost out to them, are in Pot One. Do co-efficients simply take no notice of real and meaningful competitive results, or am I just grumpy this morning?”
11am: We’re about to begin. Marsha and Piotr are our hosts for today. If their forced “banter” is anything to go by, I presume they’re Poland’s equivalent of Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly. Marsha is wearing a black dsress with very puffed-up shoulders. It may well be a nod to tonight’s Super Bowl.
11.03am: Poland prime minister Donald Tusk is introduced. He says that “Poland and Ukraine are the first winners of this elimination”, possibly misreading the word ‘competition’ on the autocue.
11.05am: Only five minutes in and we’re already on to our first montage of the morning, soundtracked by Chopin and celebrating – I think – 50 years of the European Championships.
11.07am: On Sky Sports News, they’re discussing Fabio Capello’s decision to strip John Terry of the England captaincy. Ray Houghton, who’s in punditing for the Uefa draw alongside Terry Venables and John Hartson, among others, doesn’t think it matters who the captain is. I’m inclined to agree with him.
11.10am: Sky cut to Bryan Swanson in the media centre at the Palace of Culture and Science, which is – unsurprisingly – full of people like Bryan Swanson.
11.12am: Piotr and Marsha introduce Poland legend Zbigniew “Ziggy” Boniek and his Ukrainian equivalent Andriy Shevchenko, who’ll be assisting with the draw. A couple of very longwinded interviews involving multiple translations ensues. Suffice to say, they are both looking forward to Euro 2012. Cue: another montage, showing what fans who travel to Poland and Ukraine can expect to see. A lot of building sites, is my guess. Perhaps I’m being too cynical.
11.17am: “Can you confirm that it has been agreed in advance that Ireland will be drawn in the same group as France?” asks Kevin Dardis. “That this will be the ‘replay’ some people were screaming for? And that Brian Kerr’s Faroe Islands will also be in the group? And Cyprus (as usual).”
11.18am: I can report that Poland and Ukraine both look very nice places – I’ve never been to either, so I’m only going on what they’re showing in the montage, which features a lot of Lovely Girls.
11.20am: Piotr and Marsha introduce the second pair of tournament ambassadors who’ll be helping with the draw: former international footballers Poland’s Andres Szarmach and Ukraine’s Oleg Blokhin. They too are very much looking forward to Euro 2012. Enough fannying around – let’s get on with the draw.
11.22am: Uefa big cheese Gianni Infantino takes to the stage and introduces a little primer for explaining the procedure: the lowest seeded teams will be coming out first.
Group A: Germany, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan
Group B: Russia, Slovakia, Republic of Ireland, Macedonia, Armenia, Andorra
Group C: Italy, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia, Faroe Islands
Group D: France, Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belarus, Albania, Luxembourg
Group E: Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Moldova, San Marino
Group F: Croatia, Greece, Israel, Latvia, Georgia, Malta
Group G: England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Wales, Montenegro
Group H: Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus, Iceland
Group I: Spain, Czech Republic, Scotland, Lithuania, Liechtenstein
11.28am: With the lowest ranked teams out, now we move on to the next pot. The tension here is … non-existent. Armenia get drawn out first, but go into Group B because official Uefa diktats forbid them from being in in the same group as Azerbaijan or Russia.
11.32am: Things are hotting up in Warsaw. No, really. We’re on to the third pot now.
11.35pm: We move on to the next pot, containing Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Rep of Ireland.
11.38am: The Republic of Ireland get Macedonia … again. Bah!
11.42am: So, just the Big Boys left to come out …
11.46pm: So England get Wales, which could make for a couple of interesting matches in Cardiff and Wembley.
11.48am: I’m examining those groups in a bid to come up with a Group of Death, but I’m jiggered if I can find one. Group H, with Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Cyprus and Iceland is probably the toughest, but none of them look too difficult.
11.54am: On Sky Sports News, Terry Venables is talking some seriously incomprehenisble gibberish through his grey goatee about the merits of groups with six teams over groups with five teams. He sounds very, very confused.
11.56am: Sky pundit and former Wales international John Hartson is predictably enthused by the prospect of his country playing England. He doesn’t think England will too worried at having to play Wales.
11.58am: Sky pundit and former Scotland manager Craig Brown has “got to concede that Spain are probably the favourites” to win Group I, where they are joined by the Czech Republic, Scotland, Lithuania and Liechtenstein. Probably the favourites? Probably?
12pm: Ray Houghton is delighted with the Republic of Ireland’s draw. He thinks Russia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra are all beatable and reckons there’s no reason why Ireland shouldn’t top the group “and that’s not something we’ve said too often in the past”.
12.02pm: Sky’s Norn Ironish correspondent Lawrie Sanchez looks glum and thinks his country’s chances of finishing in the top two of their group with Italy, Serbia, Estonia, Slovenia and the Faroe Islands are slim. However, he adds, there are some good destinations in Group C to suit any lads organising stag parties.
For full story go to here
Uefa Euro 2012 qualifying draw – live!
Click on the auto-refresh doo-hickey for all the latest action after 10.45am. Send your emails to barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk
Preview: Poland and Ukraine are the hosts for Euro 2012 and today, representatives of the 53 member associations who’ll be duking it out Royal Rumble style to qualify for the finals, which kick off on 8 June, will gather in Warsaw to learn their fate.
Today’s draw takes place in the Polish capital’s Palace of Culture and Science and will feature 51 plastic balls (Poland and Ukraine qualify automatically as hosts, but holders Spain must qualify the hard way) being swirled, plucked and cracked open by a dizzying array of tanned and well fed men in fetching blazers.
There are 14 berths at Euro 2012 up for grabs and nine groups will be formed in today’s qualifying draw: six groups of six teams and three of five. The seedings are formed on the basis of the Uefa national team coefficient ranking system, with holders Spain automatically top seeded. Each group will contain one side from the first five pots and six of them will also feature a team from Pot 6.
The nine group winners and the best runner-up qualify directly for the final tournament. The eight remaining runners-up will contest two-legged play-offs to decide who gets the four remaining places. You can see who’s in which pot below, where I’ve highlighted the five home nations. England are in Pot One, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland are in Pot Three and Wales are in Pot Four.
Pot One: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Croatia, Portugal, France, Russia
Pot Two: Greece, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey, Denmark, Slovakia, Romania
Pot Three: Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Pot Four: Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Belgium, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Cyprus
Pot Five: Montenegro, Albania, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Iceland, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein
Pot Six: Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Malta, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino
For full story go to here
Stickability not seeding is the essential World Cup ingredient for England | Paul Wilson
France deserve to be seeded above Argentina, but no one would have thanked Fifa for sticking Maradona’s men among the dark horses
Well there’s a relief. On paper, at least, if not actually out on the big green grassy thing, England are better than France. Not only that, but the seedings for Friday’s World Cup draw in South Africa suggest England have a right to be confident against Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast as well.
The World Cup itself may not work out quite like that, but some form of seeding is necessary and whatever system you use, whether it is world ranking, qualifying results or some sort of co-efficient that mixes the two, is bound to be arbitrary. Let’s leave out the Thierry Henry conspiracy theory for now. France deserve to be seeded above Argentina, let alone England, but no one would have thanked Fifa for sticking Diego Maradona’s unfancied but still capable dark horses in the lower strata like a razor blade near the bottom of a bran tub.
Argentina know how to win World Cups and even if their coach is somewhat eccentric they still have players who demand respect. Any group featuring Argentina and one other decent side would immediately become a group of death. That is what happened to England in Japan in 2002 when they were grouped with Argentina, Nigeria and Sweden. The Africans were reckoned to be a real threat at the time, and Argentina were considered certain to get through with players of the calibre of Gabriel Batistuta, Hernán Crespo, Juan Sebastián Verón and Javier Zanetti, but naturally England were most worried about Sweden, a team they meet regularly but appear incapable of beating. To this day, England haven’t managed a win against Sweden since 1968.
It turned out England were right to be worried about the Swedes, and not too concerned about the so-called group of death. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s countrymen topped the group in the end, like England remaining unbeaten but scoring a couple more goals. Argentina were effectively sent home by David Beckham’s penalty in Sapporo, after England’s defence had manfully held out against a second-half whirlwind, and Nigeria never troubled anyone, creeping out of the tournament after failing to manage a win and scoring just one goal.
Which just goes to show, you never can tell. Argentina now are but a shadow of the force they were seven years ago, though you would not bet much money against them progressing further in South Africa than they did in Japan. And look what happened to England last time out, when they appeared to land the cushiest of groups in Germany with just Sweden (again), Paraguay and Trinidad & Tobago for company. Statistics will show that England topped their group that year, once more managing only a draw with Sweden (when Michael Owen broke down and Joe Cole scored one of the goals of the tournament) but progressing through wins over the other two teams.
Statistics, however, do not tell the whole story. England were a major disappointment in their opening game against Paraguay in terms of setting a tone for the rest of the tournament. They won through a single own goal but failed to impress and never really hit their stride. In the second match they were even worse, finally wearing down Leo Beenhakker’s Trinidad & Tobago with late goals from Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard but making such heavy weather of it that neutral spectators were almost asking for their money back.
So while there will be much talk between now and Friday about possibilities and permutations, and plenty more between Friday and the summer about groups and opponents, the basic deal remains the same. You can go out playing well, as Argentina did in 2002, or go through playing badly, as England did in Germany. Clearly you can also go through by playing well, as Germany and Portugal did last time, or go out by playing badly as any number of teams have shown.
What is important in a tournament situation is stickability, the knack of keeping in touch whatever the draw or the opposition throws at you and not letting an early disappointment ruin the whole show, and what is necessary in a tough group is an extension of that.
Even if you are not playing well it becomes important to limit the advantage your opponents can take. You may not be able to win the points but if you can prevent the opposition taking them all is not lost. That is why so many promising group games between illustrious opponents end up as dull grinds. Better for good teams to meet in the knockout stages, in theory anyway, which is the whole point of seeding the draw.
France possibly feel they ought to be where England or Holland are right now, not having to worry about meeting Brazil or Spain until the later stages, but then Ireland still feel they possibly ought to be where France are right now so maybe there is some justice. If France are going to play like they did against Ireland they may be quite relieved at not having to go into the same group as Portugal or Slovenia (presumably Russia would have been in the same pot), because teams with a genuine World Cup pedigree (France have been in two of the last three finals, after all, so the idea that they are being punished for Henry’s handball is not that far-fetched) can usually raise their game against other leading nations. It is the middle rank of opponent that often surprises, as England have frequently found.
That said, if you would like a prediction for Friday, here it is: England will be drawn in the same group as France. And if you would like a prediction for South Africa, it is this: France will not play as badly as they did against Ireland.
For full story go to here
Hope Powell confident England women will qualify for World Cup
• National team face Turkey on Thursday
• Victory will ensure entry to 2011 tournament
The most successful year in the history of the England women’s team should be completed with a 2011 World Cup qualifying victory over Turkey on Thursday, when Hope Powell’s team will be in Izmir to face opponents who on Saturday were trounced 5-0 by Spain in their opening group game.
England kicked off their qualifying campaign with a comfortable 8-0 win against Malta last month, having earlier in the year won the Cyprus Cup and then reached the 2009 European Championship final, albeit suffering a 6-2 defeat by Germany in that clash in Helsinki.
There was a happier end to the Under-19 European Championship final, in which Sweden were beaten 2-0 for England to claim a first major tournament triumph in the 37-year history of the women’s team. “I said a few years ago that 2009 could be great for us,” said the national coach Powell about a year she is confident will end on a winning note in Turkey.
“The senior squad was going to be of the right age and experience, and the youngsters who had looked so good at 15 and 16 would be blossoming as long as they’d made the right progress. That happened, and it’s testimony to the work that’s gone on in the England system and at Centres of Excellence around the country.
“Now we have to build on what we’ve achieved this year, and to do that we must qualify for the World Cup. We made a good start in terms of the result against Malta, but it was disappointing that we didn’t score more goals. So although we should beat Turkey, we’ll have to be better with our attacking play and our finishing.”
Powell has drafted into her squad several players fresh from the youth set-up, among them the Everton striker Natasha Dowie who yesterday scored her 15th goal of the season in a 3-0 Premier League win against Bristol. The other two games played both ended in shocks, Sunderland ending Arsenal’s 100% record with a 2-1 win while Chelsea lost 2-0 at home to Doncaster.
For full story go to here
The fit England player is becoming an endangered species | Harry Pearson
Whether playing, training, warming up, warming down or simply travelling, the English sportsman is an accident waiting to happen
Are the English the world’s most injury-prone people? Certainly the recent plague of afflictions visited on our football, cricket and rugby union teams suggests a nation whose inhabitants can’t bend down to tie a shoelace without such twanging of sinew and muscle it sounds like a ukulele orchestra tuning up.
Last week Fabio Capello suffered more sudden withdrawals than Northern Rock, this week Andrew Strauss had just 11 fit players for the game in Potchefstroom, while Martin Johnson labours on with a squad so reduced it’s as if somebody dropped the entire English rugby scene into an acid bath.
It would be easy to dismiss these things as another feeble manifestation of our valetudinarian age, one that has already seen traditional schoolboy pursuits such as headlocks, wet-towel whippings and Chinese burns banished from the playground. Yet a brief glance back through the annals shows that injury is a theme that runs through English sport with the tireless tenacity of Sir Alex Ferguson pursuing new means to feel insulted. Way back in cricket’s golden age, for example, Gilbert “The Croucher” Jessop was forced to retire from the game after spending too long in a steam cabinet. In Mexico in 1970 Bobby Charlton had to be subbed after 60 minutes by Sir Alf Ramsey for fear his brain, unprotected by anything more that a wispy comb-over, would explode in the tropical sun, and as to listing the ailments of Bryan Robson, well, as the narrator of Three Men in a Boat tells his doctor, “Life is brief and you might pass away before I had finished”.
Whether they are playing, training, warming up, warming down or simply travelling the English sportsman is peculiarly vulnerable to injury. To an Italian sportsman spaghetti is a healthy meal. To his English counterpart it is a garrotting waiting to happen.
Other nations have their injuries, of course they do. Yet compared to the English foreigners appear strangely robust. During a discussion on Radio 5 Live in the aftermath of England’s loss to Brazil, Steve Claridge hinted at the reason for this when he commented that not only did the Brazilians possess skill and technique, they also have “this natural strength”.
For once Graham Taylor – who seems to camp at Broadcasting House these days – wasn’t on hand. If he had been Old Turniptop might have offered a variation on what he said after England had lost to Sweden at Euro 92 – that the opposition were bigger and stronger than the England players because they “tend to be of an outdoor pursuit” (and this despite the fact that the Swedes’ most influential player, Tomas Brolin, exuded all the earthy muscularity of Anna Wintour).
John Motson was in the studio but did not feel moved to repeat the comments he made about the Germany players during the opening rounds of Euro 96. On that occasion, as the camera panned along the Germany team, Motty let out one of his trademark warbles of astonishment. “Other teams seem to come in all shapes and sizes,” he gasped, “but the Germans all have this, this physique!” All in all it makes you see why Sir Frederick Wall, luxuriously moustached ruler of the Football Association, would not countenance England playing in the World Cup in the 1920s and 1930s. Sir Frederick clearly saw that taking on nations who had been blessed with natural physiques and natural strength, not to mention natural flair, was bound to put the England players at a gross disadvantage. For after all what has cruel nature gifted us English, save for catarrh, a sense of superiority and the apparent ability to crack a vertebra as easily as we do a smile?
Thanks to this unexplained mishap when the genes were being doled out, our sportsmen and women are figuratively playing up the slope and into the wind whenever they take the field. No wonder they often appear defensive and embittered. The England rugby union scrummage coach Graham Rowntree this week said that criticism of the England staff was out of order and over the top. And who can blame him? Instead of complaining about Martin Johnson’s team and their sterile performances, journalists should be putting a consoling arm around the big man’s shoulder and offering few consoling words about the southern hemisphere teams’ natural ability to run in a direction that doesn’t bring them slap into chest of an opponent after two paces.
Because it has to be noted that English rugby’s injury crisis must partly stem from the fact that most of the players display a matchless ability to run straight into opponents instead of into the gap on either side of them… I am not sure if this is natural. But it does seem to have been a technique highly prized by England rugby coaches ever since the day the late lamented Charles “Crashball” Kent burst on to the international scene – probably through several walls, because going through open doors would have been anathema to the chap.
And however bad things are now it appears they are only going to get worse. “He’s a throwback to the natural goalscorers who are a dying breed,” Tottenham’s Harry Redknapp said of Jermain Defoe. Yes, it seems that while we English don’t have much in the way of helpful natural abilities to start out with, now those we do have are rushing headlong towards extinction. Our only hope is that, true to national form, they will pull up with a strained calf long before they get there.
For full story go to here
England among top seeds for European Championship qualifying draw
• England join Europe’s elite international teams in pot one
• Rep of Ireland and N Ireland joined by Scotland in pot three
England have been named among the top seeds for February’s European Championship qualifying draw, but Scotland are in the third band after slipping down the rankings.
Fabio Capello’s side won nine of their 10 qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup and they will again be the highest-ranked team in their group.
But Scotland’s dismal showing in their failed World Cup qualification campaign has led to a drop down to 26th in the European rankings, meaning they join the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in pot three, with Wales among the fourth seeds.
How the teams are seeded
Pot One Spain, Germany, Holland, Italy, England, Croatia, Portugal, France, Russia.
Pot Two Greece, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey, Denmark, Slovakia, Romania.
Pot Three Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Pot Four Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Belgium, Wales, FYR Macedonia, Cyprus.
Pot Five Montenegro, Albania, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Iceland, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein.
Pot Six Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Malta, Faroe Islands, Andorra, San Marino.
For full story go to here
Flawed England give Fabio Capello timely cause for scepticism | Kevin McCarra
England’s poor performances have come at the right moments to calm public expectations
Fabio Capello’s latest gift to the country has been to grant it some scope for grumbling. Following England’s defeat in Ukraine there was a win over Belarus that was flecked with imperfections. No one can have left Wembley with the notion that the side is on the verge of greatness and nitpicking would have occupied many people on their journey home.
This country does turn out polished grumblers but even mere beginners would have spotted chances to quibble. The wingers Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright-Phillips, for instance, were generally unimpressive even if the latter did score. It was all too easy in the circumstances for David Beckham to show his expertise.
The man of the match award ought to have gone to Gareth Barry rather than the 34-year-old substitute, since the Aston Villa player was not just composed but also incisive. Even so, Beckham effortlessly showed an accomplishment beyond the reach of many younger players. There will be exasperation that he cannot be overlooked even in his dotage.
Beckham, however, should receive credit for the reinvention of himself. He now looks exactly the man to come on at the World Cup in, say, a fixture played at altitude when it is a priority to retain possession. It is hard to think of anyone else in Capello’s group who might look after the ball so scrupulously. The manager now has the advantage of not having to fend off foolish expectations. No one can have been euphoric as they left Wembley.
Maybe Capello is lucky in his timing. If, for instance, the side had drubbed Croatia 4-1 in Zagreb this week to decide the group the euphoria would have been unbounded. That result, however, came a year ago and Slaven Bilic’s players are simply written off now as men in decline that could not even get as far as the play-offs. You never hear anyone brag that it was England who did most to wreck Croatia’s form and confidence.
That is all to the good for Capello. After the pain endured in so many previous tournaments, the public now holds tight to a studied scepticism even as it appreciates the manager for making the most of his means. This humility, however, is in itself excessive. While the Fifa rankings correspond with public opinion in declaring Brazil and Spain the outstanding sides, Capello’s team will, at the minimum, pose a threat in South Africa.
There are leading nations whose defects have cast them into the play-offs. France, for example, were defeated 3-1 in Austria and held to a draw by Romania in Paris. Portugal, in their first three home matches, lost to Denmark before recording goalless draws with Albania and Sweden. On reflection, we might spare England a little more approval for scoring 34 times in their group.
Still, restraint is bound to be to Capello’s taste. He had decided to put the emphasis purely on qualification. A dozen footballers who had been in previous squads took up the invitation to join the men in the current party at Wembley. The manager proposed a toast and said, “See you in South Africa,” even though arithmetic dictates that many must be cast aside. There is no bombast or even a reference to what England might be capable of at the finals.
Everything is provisional in Capello’s mind, although he concedes that there are 16 well-established footballers in his scheme. “I have my ideas,” he said, “but I have to check next April what the situation is. Sometimes at the start of the season, the players are good. At the end of the season they are tired. It is impossible to speak now about 23 players who will be with us in South Africa.”
Capello must, to take one example, be very keen to reinstate Theo Walcott, but the Arsenal attacker, as he gets back to full match fitness, has to show all over again that he has all the attributes that took him to a hat-trick in Zagreb. He has begun four games for Capello since then without scoring.
The manager mentioned Walcott, Lennon, Gabriel Agbonlahor and James Milner as young footballers of note on Wednesday night, but there was no specific promise of involvement. It could be the balance of the team that dictates Capello’s conclusions. Joe Cole, struck down by cruciate ligament damage in January, had started the qualifier in Zagreb. He has value as the right-footed prompter who, like Steven Gerrard, can cut in from the left and leave Ashley Cole to push up outside him as an extra midfielder.
Capello is open to suggestions and, for instance, offered hope even to someone like Kieran Gibbs, a left-back with one league appearance for Arsenal in this campaign. The manager, more realistically, pitched in the names of Owen Hargreaves and Stewart Downing on the assumption that these injured players could be in action later this year.
He offers hope to everyone so that no one in the squad can ever feel secure.
For full story go to here
England to make formal complaint to Fifa over flares thrown by Ukraine fans
• Flares delay game on several occasions
• ‘What happened was unacceptable,’ say FA
England will formally complain to Fifa about the flares thrown on to the pitch that held up their World Cup qualifier in Dnipropetrovsk for several minutes. Fabio Capello’s team lost 1-0, ending their 100% record, and had goalkeeper Robert Green sent off for a foul.
“We have spoken to the Fifa delegate at the game and he is preparing a report on the flare situation,” the FA’s communications chief, Adrian Bevington, said. “We will submit a formal complaint of our own because we feel what happened was unacceptable.” The complaints will be a severe embarrassment to Ukraine, who are due to co-host the 2012 European Championship with Poland.
About a dozen lighted flares were thrown into the penalty area from behind Robert Green’s goal soon after kick-off, causing play to be held up. Stewards inexpertly tried to extinguish them, doing nothing to settle the goalkeeper’s nerves. When Green was called into action for the first time after the game restarted he committed the foul that led to his dismissal, and while the FA are not necessarily linking the two incidents, had this result been of importance to England it is likely they would have asked for the match to be replayed. That is unnecessary with England already qualified.
The manner in which the flares were thrown could be construed as a deliberate attempt to put Green off. They were thrown only at one end and there was a steady succession of them, where normally you might see the odd one or two.
“I was unhappy about the game having to be held up, because we started so well,” Capello said. “But what can you do? I saw the police were searching the fans for flares and missiles when they came in, but clearly some got through.”
Capello was also unhappy about the way in which Green was dismissed, because the referee initially showed the red card to Rio Ferdinand. It was Green who had brought down Artem Milevskiy and although Andriy Shevchenko missed the penalty, it seemed to infuriate Capello that if Damir Komina, of Slovenia, thought Ferdinand had committed the foul he could not have had a clear idea of what Green had done.
“The referee didn’t seem to see the match properly,” Capello said. “I thought we played very well in the circumstances. The only goal came from a deflection and we were creating chances right up to the end.”
On an eventful night in the Ukraine, Steven Gerrard sustained a groin strain that will keep him out of Wednesday’s match against Belarus at Wembley, and several witnesses said they had heard racist chanting directed at Carlton Cole.
Elsewhere, Germany claimed a place in the finals with a 1-0 victory over Russia in Moscow. Denmark defeated Sweden to reach the finals and give Portugal a chance via the playoffs.
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Cristiano Ronaldo dismisses Wayne Rooney’s Portugal jibe
• Rooney ‘played a few times against us and never won’
• Queiroz says Rooney was showing respect for Portugal
Cristiano Ronaldo believes his former Manchester United team-mate Wayne Rooney was joking when the England striker said he would be pleased if Portugal failed to qualify for the World Cup.
“I am sure he was joking,” the Portuguese forward said today. “He is a good friend of mine and he knows Portugal are a top team. He played a few times against us and never won. But I am sure he was joking as he has friends here [in the Portugal squad].”
Rooney yesterday said “it would be nice” if Portugal failed to qualify as the country knocked out England in their last two appearances in major tournaments, the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2004.
“When we didn’t qualify for Euro 2008, we [the United players] got a lot of stick [from Ronaldo],” Rooney said.
England have already qualified for next year’s finals in South Africa while Portugal are third in Group One and must win at least one of their remaining matches against Hungary and Malta, while hoping Sweden drop points, to reach the play-offs.
The Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz, who worked with both players at United, said Rooney was showing his respect for Portugal. “Knowing him, I know why he said that,” Queiroz said. “It’s because it shows his respect for Portuguese football and Ronaldo particularly.”
Rooney was sent off against Portugal in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho in a match that triggered a media backlash against Ronaldo. Ronaldo had suggested to the referee that Rooney should be sent off and was seen to wink at his bench when the official did so.
Rooney said he had no doubt that he deserved to be sent off and made clear there were no hard feelings towards Ronaldo, saying the Portuguese had only improved since his move to Real Madrid. Portugal play Hungary in Lisbon tomorrow and Malta in Guimaraes next Wednesday.
