Steven Gerrard scored a monster goal after 11 minutes, and then England let Belarus play, so they equalised seventeen minutes later.
Belarus played Hleb-football without Hleb and became confident enough to push the ball around and score with a header after 24 passes.
Walcott should be using his pace to press opponents. He should not be walking about in a daze. He’s got to do better than stand five yards away, allowing Sitko a free header from three yards.
Generally, Minsk was a scenario we have seen too often before : England went 1-0 up and took their foot off the pedal and let Belarus come back into the game. They still haven’t learned that you can’t take a breather when the other side has the ball. You take it when you have the ball.
But it was a good night. England started with tempo and their first chance came from a second ball.
Rio hit it long, Belarus headed it back, Gerrard won it and fed Walcott on the right, and his diagonal cross was bouncing in front of Rooney when the defender held Rooney’s left arm. It was a sharpish chance because of the height of the ball as it bounced. Unfortunately, Rooney’s body was between the linesman and the defender, so the official could not see the sort of tiny tug in which Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson specialised. They knew how to foul you in the box without giving away a penalty.
Next chance, same thing. Belarus headed the ball away, Lampard read it and won it and knocked the ball forward for Rooney, who chested the ball and took two touches to evade the defenders, then heard a shout. So he left the ball for his mate, who scored a goal that only the Action Man can score : he sidefooted a bouncing shot into the net from 30 yards. An amazing goal and you thought : Stevie G can play as narrow as he likes if he scores goals like that. You think : Who have we seen who could have scored that goal from that distance from that ball? Bergkamp & Kaka? Who else ?
But then England took their foot off the gas. Watching that , Capello must have been furious. He knows his team are not as strong defensively as he wants them to be. He was without John Terry and Ashley Cole and that was probably why he decided to retain Gerrard, who was poor in the 5-1 win against Kazakhstan at Wembley.
Second half, Rooney skipped through and beat two defenders but scuffed his sidefoot shot from 18 yards. Then Heskey picked up Wayne Bridge’s quick throw and powered past Filipenko to set up Rooney for a near-post tap-in from six yards.
After 50 minutes, England were 2-1 up.
We enjoyed the authority of Rooney’s two finishes against Kazakhstan last Saturday and in 74 he scored another goal that was even better.
There was a good pass to him by Bridge but the dummy was a better option, so he let the ball run to Gerrard, took a simple pass, faked out the keeper, and clipped his shot inside the near post. By avoiding the obvious, he made the killing strike look easy. That goal ended the contest and that goal was pure Wayne Rooney. He is a package of belligerence and disguise. No striker who is as instinctively aggressive as Rooney is also as instinctively crafty.
After nine games, and four wins in his first four World Cup qualifying games, Fabio Capello seems to combine, in one personality, the passion of Bobby Robson with the tactical insight of Bobby’s former assistant Don Howe.
He looks capable of eventually providing an England team which has the discipline that Alf Ramsey gave England for most of his 11 years in charge. Capello obviously thinks that (1) England can win away games against mediocre teams but he also thinks (2) that they lack the technique and concentration to play a defensive/possession game for 90 minutes.
Belarus, like Kazakhstan and Croatia, can compete with England, but not for 90 minutes. So Capello emphasises tempo and aggressive pressing. Last night he knew that England were strong in the middle but weak on the flanks, so for the second half he told Barry and Lampard not to cross the halfway line. That worked and they won. Some aspects could have been a lot better but England won 3-1. As Tony Adams said on the ITV highlights show, “He gets the job done.”
So that’s where we are. We now know that Fabio Capello doesn’t give players caps, he gives them jobs. As Rio said, “There are no grey areas.”
And – this is a guess – I don’t think Joe Cole or Rooney mind the manager shouting at them from time to time. It’s not the first shouting they’ve ever heard in their lives and they realise that Capello only shouts when they do something wrong. He’s made it crystal clear that they’re not playing for England to impress their mates. They’re out there to win.