England 5 Croatia 1
Fabio Capello has made the England team greater than the sum of its parts.
Taylor, Keegan, Sven and Steve McClaren made England less than the sum of its parts.
They were all tossers. Utterly incompetent clowns.
Venables, allegedly a master-tactician, could not get us to the final of Euro 96 when playing every game at Wembley.
But Fabio Capello, the Italian iron man, has moulded our sloppy millionaires into a competitive unit that has won eight qualifying games out of eight.
We are going to South Africa. We’ve qualified with two games to spare.
Played 8, won 8 ! What’s not to like?
Capello’s discipline and Rooney’s tempo set the tone last night as Croatia were crushed 5-1.
They had been hammered 4-1 in Zagreb, where the ruthless Capello attacked their weakest position, left back.
This time Slaven Bilic put a midfield player, Pokrivac, at left back and the zippy Aaron Lennon destroyed him, winning a penalty from clumsy centreback Simunic in 6 minutes. Penalty prince Frank Lampard slammed home sweetly from the spot, then Gerrard nodded a second from Lennon’s cross in 18.
England played a high-tempo game, pressing ferociously. Wayne Rooney’s energy and belligerence set the tempo from the front. He was a threat when he had the ball and a threat when he didn’t have it.
But the score was only 2-0 at half-time.
In 59, Glenn Johnson clipped a beautiful cross for Lampard to make it 3-0 with a tasty header.
In 66, Gerrard headed another from Rooney’s cross to the far post.
In 71, Rob Green made two saves but could not hold the ball on the second one and Eduardo netted for 4-1.
In 76, Rooney got a gift from keeper Vedran Runje, whose left-footed miskick gave him an open goal he accepted for 5-1.
As I’ve been saying for some time, Capello is the best manager we’ve had since Alf Ramsey.
But his team is still a work-in-progress. Very few of our opponents in South Africa will be as feeble as Croatia were last night.
Indeed, Slovenia were far superior to Croatia because they hustled England in their own half and marked better. They didn’t sit back and let England have the ball, which is what Croatia did last night.
Counter-attack is in their DNA but without Modric and Corluka they had no chance and knew they might be thrashed.
There are 273 day to go to the World Cup.
Capello, being Capello, has told JT and the boys that they have to finish off the campaign professionally by winning their last two games.
Nobody stamps on complacency as fiercely as he does.
When Capello arrived at the Real Madrid training ground in 2006 the first thing he did was walk over to where a posse of fat Brazilians were sitting around chatting and laughing. He gave them an almighty bollocking. Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo got a reality check that day.
He coached Real Madrid in 1996-97 and won La Liga then he went back in 2006-2007 and coached them again and won the title again.
Geoff Shreeves : “Fabio , it’s been said that Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can’t play together?”
Capello (smiling): ” I think good players can play together.”
Wales’s bravery undone by brilliance of Arshavin.
Tomorrow : a preview of Man City v Arsenal.
Could turn out to be one of the pivotal games of Arsenal’s season. Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall at Old Trafford and the French professor has one day to put Humpty Dumpty together again before Eastlands.
ENGLAND (4-2-3-1): Green (West Ham); Johnson (Liverpool), Terry (Chelsea), Upson (West Ham), A Cole (Chelsea); Barry (Manchester City), Lampard (Chelsea); Lennon (Tottenham), Rooney (Manchester United), Gerrard (Liverpool); Heskey (Aston Villa). Subs used: Defoe (Tottenham) for Heskey (54), Beckham (LA Galaxy) for Lennon (80), Milner (Aston Villa) for Gerrard (80).
CROATIA (4-4-2): Runje (Lens); Srna (Shakhtar Donetsk), Krizanac (Zenit St Petersburg), Simunic (Hoffenheim), Pranjic (Bayern Munich); Mandzukic (Dinamo Zagreb), Vukojevic (Dynamo Kiev), Pokrivac (Red Bull Salzburg), Kranjcar (Tottenham); Olic (Bayern Munich), Eduardo (Arsenal). Subs used: Petric (Hamburg) for Olic (h-t), Rakitic (Schalke) for Pokrivac (h-t), Klasnic (Bolton) for Eduardo (72).
Referee: Alberto Undiano Mallenco is a sociologist from Pamplona.
Booked: Terry, Simunic.
Engerland crowd: 87,319.