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Wednesday 20 August 2008

England 2 v Czech Republic 2

As England wind up to World Cup qualification starting in earnest in three weeks time, they took on the Czech Republic at Wembley. The time for experimentation is over and this should have been the start of a new England era at a new England Stadium with their Italian manager.
Beckham starts the game and the mystery striker turns out to be Defoe as England take on a team ranked six places above them according to FIFA rankings.
Beckham has an early opportunity from a free kick on the left hand side of the penalty area but the shot was blocked. Shortly after the Czechs got into the England Box and Milan Baros had a shot deflected into the back of the net by Ashley Cole.
England continue to pressurise the Czechs peppering the goal with shots that Petr Chech was more than competent to deal with. The Czechs were happy to play a counter-attacking game. However as a result of England pressure, a Beckham corner brought an unstoppable headed goal from Wes Brown to even the score on 45 minutes.
Emile Heskey came on to replace Defoe for the second half, and Bentley replaced Beckham. England got off to a sluggish start allowing the Czechs to have possession around the box, the defence struggled to clear the danger and the Czechs ended up with a free kick right on the edge of the penalty area. The free-kick was dispatched with consummate skill into the top-left hand corner of the goal to take the score to 2-1. Ferdinand made way for Woodgate, but the defence continued to look less than tight. Late in the game, England were allowed to push forward and managed to somehow force the ball over the line in the total mess of a goal-mouth scramble in the 90th minute.
Over all the performance was less than convincing and the team do not yet look like a complete team. They fail to look like a team with a plan A much of the time, let alone a plan B. No-one can doubt that the Czech Republic are a decent team, and just holding them to a draw should be seen in a positive light, but one can't help wishing for a more convincing performance almost regardless of the resulting score-line.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

at home England should win, tough set of mistakes. Great post stumbling it now!

-acdc