THEO WALCOTT slotted two classy goals for England Under-21s in Leverkusen tonight.
Both were one-on-ones and Arsenal’s Theo, 17, finished both beautifully
England led Germany 1-0 from last week and needed only a draw to qualify for the European Under-21 Championships in Holland next summer.
The Germans, coached by Dieter Eilts (their best player in Euro 96), lost centreback Brzenska early in the game for bringing down Preston striker David Nugent.
But they played very well with ten men. The referee gave them a ridiculously soft penalty after a comical dive by Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez but they missed it, shooting wide of Scott Carson’s right-hand post.
Newcastle stopper Steven Taylor was sent off for an agricultural tackle near the touchline.He missed the ball by a yard and whacked the German forward and was correctly shown the red card.
THEO WALCOTT came on for the last 13 minutes and soon raced onto a perfect long pass from Leighton Baines and sidefooted low past advancing keeper Rensing.
That made it 2-0 on aggregate and even the Germans could not come back from that.
Then the kid put the icing on the cake with a second goal straight out of the Thierry Henry textbook. He accelerated from the halfway line and left the defence for dead and cruised into the left side of the box and took half a stride past the ball and opened up his body and knocked it perfectly across the keeper and just inside the post for 2-0 on the night and 3-0 on aggregate.
COACH PETER TAYLOR was very badly treated in the past by the FA when Howard Wilkinson was in charge. You would expect that because the FA is run by clowns.Now he is managing the Under 21s again on a game to game basis, while also managing Crystal Palace.
Steve McClaren wants to make the Under-21 job full-time.
So Peter Taylor is due to step down at the end of the season. But the players, and especially captain Nigel Reo-Coker, want him to stay on for the tournament.
Over to you, Mr Barwick.