By Myles Palmer
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England 1 Portugal 1
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Smith 40, Costinha 79
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It was the usual Svfriendly international.
First half, OK. Second half a shambles.
David James is 32 and has never been trusted.
He has 10 caps, all in friendlies. Will Sven dare to play him in Slovakia on October 12th?
Clearly, Alan Smith will start that game.
Up till now I was never convinced by Smith.I was one of those who said : he is malevolent, lacks pace, and not a prolific scorer.
And I know just how big the gap is between Under-21 football and senior international football.
It’s a HUGE step up.And far more pressure.
Well,I’ve changed my mind about the kid.
At Villa Park, Alan Smith was what we have needed for four years : a young,pugnacious competitor with a football brain who can finish and hold it up.
At 21 he combines the strength of Alan Shearer,the touch of Mark Hughes, and the positional cunning of Teddy Sheringham.
He could turn into a peroxide Paul Mariner.
Since France 98 England have been looking in vain for a partner for Michael Owen, who is just a sprinter with a good shot.
Owen is off form at the moment, so he did not score.
Owen was obviously OFF-form for Liverpool against Newcastle, just as Wiltord was ON-form against West Brom, so it was Wiltord who scored the winning goal for his country with a 25 yard cannonball.Cyprus 1 France 2.
BE CLEAR ABOUT ONE THING : It’s very difficult to partner Owen – Shearer couldn’t do it, Fowler couldn’t, Heskey can’t.
But, amazingly, there are signs that Smith & Owen could play together for the next two years and make each otherlook good.
Smith’s agression also makes Sven less dependent on Heskey’s aggression, which can be intermittent.
Sven urgently needs three players now: a talker at the back, a goalkeeper who is not 39, and a partner for Owen.
The left wing role is not as important as everyone makes out.If the rest of the team is right, you can bluff that position.
Given the way that Sven wants England to play, Alan Smith is the striker he has been looking for.
Because his ball-holding ability will create time for midfielders like Gerrard, Beckham, Scholes, Bowyer and others to run into shooting positions.
Smith will make England less one-dimensional. He’s no Beardsley, but he will do.
They can now mix it up by having three-pass moves, but also ten-pass moves.
And Smith will also win free-kicks for Beckham.
If Sven was a bold coach he would have taken Nicky Butt off after an hour and moved Bowyer into the Butt position-ie the Scholes position.
Bowyer is more skilful than Butt or Scholes but his great asset is his engine.
He can get into the box and score in the 4th minute – and in the 94th.
(Personally, I would not have Bowyer or Woodgate anywhere near my England team. But then I would not have had Terry Venables near my England team either.)
But we are talking here about Sven building a football team that can beat Turkey.
For that you need high-energy athletew who can not only run box to box, but who can zip ACROSS the fieldas they skirmish with Basturk, Hakan Sas and Tugay.
My guess is that without a talking centreback and a quality keeper, England won’t beat Turkey home or away.
Turkey were third in the World Cup.
That does not make them the third best team in the world-but they are better than Sven’s England.
Incidentally, I was amused to find it was Costinha who scored the equaliser by heading in a corner from Viana.
26 days ago, in the Algarve, a lovely lad drove us to the airport in Faro and pointed out the half-built new stadium near Loule.
I asked him what happened to Costinha, who did not play in the World Cup. I had rated Costinha in Euro 2000. Very mobile, good tackler, good header .
The lad said the new manager didn’t fancy him. He was playing for Porto, but the national team now had better midfielders.
Fair enough , I thought. Players come and go. Maybe I will never hear of Costinha again.
I still think STEVEN GERRARD is the best footballer in England because he can do everything.
He wasn’t great in this game. But one early pass, drilled 35 yards forward to Bowyer on the flank, gave us a glimpse of how dynamic Stevie G can be.
He will have better nights in bigger games.
Did you see that snorter by MICHAEL BALLACK?
Germany’s first was an o.g. by a Lithuanian defender.
The second was a 25-yarder which Ballack rifled through a crowd of players.
It was a phenomenal shot by one of the most two-footed players in world football.
No right-footed player in European football could have hit that ball so early or so hard with his left foot as Ballack did.
Not Gerrard, not Zidane, not Valeron, not even Shevchenko himself.
Graham Poll blew the final whistle, Ballack, standing next to the ref, shook hands with Poll, and Poll patted him on the back.
Poll has reffed Ballack before and he will ref him again.
And he will see him score more classy goals like that.
Del Piero now looks like Bruce Springsteen!
He has had a haircut.But he still takes a mean free-kick.
Italy won 2-0 in Azerbaijan.
Could England win 2-0 in Azerbaijan?
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ENGLAND: James; Mills (Hargreaves 45),Ferdinand(Woodgate 45), Southgate, Ashley Cole (Bridge 45) ;Bowyer(Sinclair 62), Gerrard (Dunn 45), Butt (Murphy 63), Heskey,Smith, Owen (Joe Cole 63).
Sub Not Used: Paul Robinson, Leeds keeper.
PORTUGAL: Baia (Pereira 45); Beto (Nuno Gomes 45), Meira
(Silva 78), Couto (Ferreira 45), Sergio Conceicao (Valente 45),Teixeira (Vidigal 65), Rui Costa (Boa Morte 45), Jorge(Capucho 45), Figo (Viana 45), Pauleta (Santos 45), Sabrosa(Costinha 54).
Crowd: 40,058
Ref: T. Obrebo (Norway).
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