From : John Oliver :
Subject : Israel 2 Russia 1
Whoops Myles!! I can hear you struggling to get your foot out of your mouth before you tuck into that large portion of humble pie. And I don’t even care about England but I felt I had to pass comment on this howler of a prediction. Better luck next time!!
John Oliver
PS: I do enjoy reading your articles, keep up the good work !
John,
I didn’t get any humble pie. I would have eaten it but there was none left by the time I arrived. There wasn’t enough to go round because everybody got this one wrong, including the sports editors who prepared Steve McClaren’s obituary.
What can I say? Only that it is, actually, no comfort to me that other people got it wrong as well.
But consider this : the bookies had Israel at 6-1 to beat Russia.
An astonishing price. A mind-boggling price. Why were Israel 6-1? Why were Israel, with a good home record, 6-1 in a two-horse race? Because punters put so much money on Russia to win? Or because the bookies thought the game was bent?
What happened on Saturday handed England an unexpected lifeline : Israel 2 Russia 1 is the best result of Steve McClaren’s career.
Guus Hiddink’s boys didn’t turn up in the first half and Barda scored an early goal from a quick move through the middle and Russia were 1-0 down at half-time and then Russia started to play in the second half and Arshavin, Putin’s favourite player, set up Bilyaletdinov to make it 1-1, and then Russia dominated and the contest built up to an amazing climax.
In 89, as the Russians pressed forward in numbers, Arshavin played in sub Sychev, whose shot clipped the outside of the post. If Sychev had scored, England were out of Euro 2008 and McClaren was out of a job. Then, in stoppage time at the other end, Golan beat the offside trap and finished sweetly for 2-1.
Two obscure 25-year old Israeli forwards had handed England a reprieve in Tel Aviv
Conclusion : The Russians didn’t handle the occasion at all.
They allowed the event, the pressure, to get to them. Their defending was imbecilic on the first goal, as there was only one runner, and their final ball was nervous. They missed chances in the second half as the game became a siege.
The Israelis handled the occasion far better than Russians did and at the critical moments produced clever runs, nice killer passes, and a sharp finish to win it At 1-1, Israel were protecting the draw but when the chance came to win the game they took it. Russia scored one good goal but Israel scored two good goals.
Guus Hiddink did well with South Korea in 2002 and with Australia in 2006. Both those teams had belief and bottle. The Russians had no bottle and no composure in the box. Defending is the easy part of football and it can be taught but you wouldn’t know that from watching those Russian centrebacks, who played like planks again. They are appalling and must be replaced ASAP.
So Israel 2 Russia 1 is news but also history.
Israeli football coaches will hold up this DVD as a masterclass of counter-attacking football. In the last five years Israel have been hard to beat but they used to draw a lot of games. Not now. In 11 games so far they have only drawn twice.
If they had seven players as good as Benayoun and Ben Haim they would do OK – but they may never produce that many. This campaign has shown that solid organisation can be effective when married with the razor-sharp finishing that Barda and Golan demonstrated here. They only let in 12 goals in 11 games but that defensive record needs to be improved slightly. If you don’t concede many goals, you don’t have to score many.
Obviously, Israel were not far off qualifying. They lost three games, England lost two. Israel won six games, England won seven. The difference is not huge : three points.
In the Scotland-Italy game at Hampden Park, Luca Toni scored after 79 seconds when the Scots went to sleep on a throw-in.
The ball-boy was awake and threw the ball to Zambrotta and the Scots switched off as Zambrotta threw it to the unmarked Di Natale, who set up Luca Toni for a sickening sucker punch.
Di Natale had a goal for 2-0 wrongly disallowed for offside, and Barry Ferguson’s tap-in was just offside but no flag went up. After five replays we could see that Zambrotta blocked a shot with his upper arm but no penalty was given.
David Weir had a header cleared off the line, Alan Hutton had a header just past the post, and then Scotland had another chance to win it when sub Kenny Miller’s low cross went past the far post and James McFadden could not quite convert a sharpish chance.
In 88 minutes the score was still was 1-1 and it should have been a free-kick the other way when Chiellini barged David Weir ten yards from the linesman, whose decision was incredible, inexplicable, beyond logic.
The position of the free-kick was so wide and advanced that it was almost a corner and when Pirlo crossed beautifully, Panucci, always a threat in the air, headed past Craig Gordon. If Scotland had put men on the posts, as they do at corners, they might have prevented that goal and earned the draw they deserved.
Overall, it was heroic failure, a Scottish speciality, a tradition the fans understand well, having learned it from their parents. Nobody does heroic failure as well as the Scots and, accordingly, the Tartan Army gave their heroes a standing ovation during their lap of honour.
Scotland’s next competitive game will be a World Cup qualifier in 10 months from now That is a long time.
Alex McLeish is a talented manager who has already turned down two English clubs.