England beat Switzerland 3-1 to top their Euro 2012 group and will be facing second placed Montenegro mid October 2010. Wayne Rooney scored for the first time for England since a 5-1 win against Croatia a year ago. Darrent Bent played his 7th England game and scored for the first time for the Three Lions. Joleon Lescott was summoned to partner Phil Jagielka in place of the injured Michael Dawson. The Swiss were reduced to 10 men after right-back, Lichtsteiner got a second bookable offence, and, more worrying for coach Fabio Capello, Theo Walcott and Jermaine Defoe were injured. Actually, the biggest losers would be Arsene Wenger and Harry Redknapp. Bulgaria subdued Montenegro by a single goal in this Group G.
The Group A match between Turkey and Belgium ended with a 3-2 Turkish victory. Austria also beat Kazakhstan 2-0. Germany, 2010 FIFA World Cup semi-finalists, went rampant, beating Azerbaijan 6-1. They put up a solid performance with Klose scoring twice. Podolski was also on target. Rashad Sadhikov scored an own goal, while Heiko Westermann and Holger Badstuber scored the other goals.
The Republic of Ireland beat a spirited Andorran side by 3-1. Andorra were tactically sound but were no match for the Irish who scored through Doyle and captain Robbie Keane. Macedonia and Armenia drew 2-2 in the Group B. Miroslav Stoch of Slovakia scored a single goal which was enough to hand Russia a 0-1 defeat in Moscow.
A Group C match between Serbia and Slovenia ended in 1-1, while Italy were ruthless against the Faroe Islands, thumping the 5-1 Alberto Gilardino, Daniele De Rossi, Antonio Cassano, substitute Fabio Quagliarella and Andrea Pirlo all scored for the 2010 FIFA World Cup flops. Captain Pirlo's free-kick goal was top-drawer stuff.
Belarus and Romania fired blanks drawing 0-0. Romania were a pale shadow of the great footballing generation of George Hagi and Illeu Pepescu. Belarus had beaten France last Friday 1-0. The French bounced back from a dismal performance to overcome Bosnia by Karim Benzema and Flourent Malouda goals. A 2-0 win against Bosnia will not do much to pacify the French public still trying to recover from the World Cup embarrassing showing that saw the French national team walk out training sessions.
Holland won their second match in the qualifiers, winning 2-1 over Finland at home. Klaas Huntelaar scored 2 goals. Wesley Sneijder supplied a cross for the first goal and Huntelaar converted a 16th minute penalty. Finland, who were denied by brilliant goalkeeping heroics of Maarten Stekelenburg, scored in the 18th minute through a Mikael Forssell header. Sweden went on a rampage in Group E, walloping San Marino 6-0. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice. Former World Cup winners, Hungary beat Moldova by a 2-1 scoreline.
In Group F, there were no goals in Georgia versus Israel and Croatia versus Greece matches. Malta, with a population of around 300 000 people, most of them illegal immigrants from West Africa, lost to Latvia 0-2 at home. Goals came from Kaspars Gorkss and Maris Verpakovskis. Malta were well beat 3-1 away by Israel last week, Yossi Benayoun scoring a hat-trick in that match. Croatia have never been a force they were in the days of Davor Suker, a striker and character of note during his hay days.
Portugal suffered an embarassing defeat to Norway. Their nightmare continued from a 4-4 draw against Cyprus at home. A school boy goalkeeping error saw John Carew closing down a back-pass to the keeper who messed up the ball that fell to Erik Huseklepp who scored the goal. The Pourtuguese may not have not done much with the injured Cristiano Ronaldo as they looked out of sorts for extended periods of the match. Denmark beat Iceland 1-0 in another Group H match.
Group I; Czech Republic 0, Lithuania 1. Scotland 2, Liechtenstein 1. Milan Baros had a penalty saved and Darvydas Sernas headed past keeper Petr Cech in the 26th minute but the Czechs could not fight back.
No comments:
Post a Comment