England 0 Chile 2
Sanchez 7, 90+4
___________________________
Compact, stocky and combative, Alexis Sanchez would have scored from both of Sagna’s crosses at Old Trafford.
His bottle allows him to score various types of goals.
From what I’ve seen in recent years, most of the international forwards who have the explosive pace to score breakaway goals are not brave enough to throw themselves in front of defenders to score with head and boot.
While the Barcelona star is a touch player who can play pinball one-twos with Messi, he can also rip defences open with his acceleration. Since Messi has been injured, Barca’s new coach Tata Martino has encouraged them to hit Neymar and Sanchez with longer passes.
Alexis Sanchez is what Arsenal badly need: a fiery match-winner who is as durable as a good welterweight.
He’s more competitive than Benzema, more explosive than Higuain, and far less controversial than Suarez.
He is a sprinter, a raider, a predator, an elite warrior who was sold by Udinese just before the Italian club met Arsenal in a CLQ in 2011.
Friday night’s game?
Basically, England found Chile too foreign, so our experimental side was outplayed by tenacious visitors who fielded 10 of their 11 regulars. Only Arturo Vidal of Juventus was missing from the side that finished third in South American qualifying group. (Brazil did not play qualifying matches).
Hungry and proud, Chile outplayed us all over the pitch and particularly delighted in holding the ball in deep areas and saying: Come and get it!
We couldn’t handle that because they were so inventive in the way each player retained the ball and used it. Tactically smart and individually resourceful, these guys proved to be far superior to Poland, Montenegro or Ukraine, and we had made the cardinal error of conceding after only seven minutes. If you concede early, you have to chase the game, so we did that and got comprehensively outplayed by superior craftsmen.
Chile are my kind of team because they mix it up.
They can keep the ball in any zone of the pitch, play pass-and move in swarms, and they can hit a longer pass that stretches you to breaking point.
That’s how the early goal came: as we tried amateurishly to press Chile in their own half, somebody hit a 50-yard pass to the unmarked Isla on the right flank and his Beckhamish cross found Vargas, who was obliged to lay the ball off to Aranguiz, whose shot was blocked by Cahill.
Aranguiz got the rebound, found Beausejour, who played it wide to the overlapping left back Mena. Cahill had been winded by the original shot and the cross beat him and Leighton Baines didn’t get anywhere near the ball, allowing Sanchez to dart inside him and send a bullet header bouncing beyond keeper Fraser Forster.
That was the game right there. That move, that counter-attack, decided the game, even though it was the second ball across the box that provided the goal, not the first. The other 83+4 minutes were barely relevant. A coda, almost.
Truth : Engerland never recovered from that early hammer blow.
This wasn’t a 95-minute football match. It was a seven-minute match.
Without Phil Jagielka, Gary Cahill had a nightmare, as did Leighton Baines. Cahill proved his bewilderment in stoppage time when he played a suicidal crossfield pass with his left foot. What was he doing? Why did he pass the ball there? Did he think England were 5-1 up? His pass went straight to Fuenzalida, who released Sanchez for a one-on-one chance.
The very best South American strikers look supremely composed in these situations and the Barcelona star sat Fraser Forster down and dinked him with huge panache.
England 0 Sanchez 2.
We had lost for the first time in 10 games under Roy Hodgson.
Of their three debutants, Forster was, for me, the most promising. The giant Celt looks a better bet than Joe Hart, even if he does play in a weak league. But Hart will remain Hodgson’s No1 keeper.
Clearly, Adam Lallana didn’t make an instant impact like Andros Townsend did.
But what other forward player has been an immediate success since 22-year old Darren Anderton
started against Denmark in 1994?
The introduction of Townsend brought a huge cheer from the crowd.
They love his urgency, his directness. They see someone is as keen as they are to see us score a goal. Townsend’s left foot is a wand and he can score with his right. He makes things happen and I reckon Andros Townsend is good enough to play for Chile.
As subs, Ross Barkley and Chris Smalling looked OK. Barkley is a No.10 who plays in Rooney’s position and Smalling is a centreback who plays in Cahill’s position.
Being very two-footed, Adam Lallana is a find, so I’d start him against Germany with Rooney and Townsend.
We don’t know what Lallana can do but we need to find out ASAP. He’s a likely lad with a bit of Beardsley in him
Jack Wilshere lost the ball too often but improved as the game went on.
Bottom line, the result of this friendly doesn’t matter. Roy Hodgson wanted to look at three players and he knew the risks involved.
Mainly, this was the Wembley night of Alexis Sanchez, a 24-year old samurai with no sword.
He’s only five foot seven but when you watch a match like this you think: football is a game played by small Latins. The only striker I love more than Sanchez is Radamel Falcao, who coolly evaded Mignolet before applying the coup de grace in Brussels this week.
Colombia beat Belgium 2-0. That wasn’t Falcao’s best goal but he always knew he was gonna score.
Somewhere during 2011 or 2012 I decided that this Colombian is the guv’nor.
But I’ve struggled to define what it is that I love about players like him and Sanchez. Why do I love them so much? Because they have the balance, strength and coolness of the samurai? Maybe it’s simply that, like those Japanese military specialists, these two footballers combine remarkable artistry with fearless physicality to produce moments that are memorable and decisive.
England (4-3-3): Forster; Johnson, Cahill, Jones,Baines; Lallana, Lampard, Wilshere; Milner, Rooney Rodriguez.
Subs: Rodriguez/Townsend 57; Jones/Smalling 57; Defoe/Milner 66, Lampard/Henderson 71; Cleverley/Wilshere 71; Barkley/Lallana 77
Chile (4-3-3): Bravo; Isla, Medel, Gonzalez, Mena; Diaz, Fernandez, Aranguiz; Sanchez, Vargas, Beausejour.
Subs: Fernandez/Gutierrez ht; Aranguiz/Carmona ht; Isla/Jara 60; Vargas/Munoz 71; Beusejour/Fuenzalida 82.
Booked by German ref Florian Meyer : Cahill,Smalling, Beausejour, Jara, Mena.
Official crowd figure: 62,963
Since he’s been around pro football all his life, Frank Lampard has often sounded more like a manager than a player. He’s a self-made method footballer who knows his limitations and he’s almost always taken a practical view of his job and that’s one reason why he’s won so many medals and 103 caps.
He’s still there because we don’t have anybody better. Lampard, who captained Engerland in the absence of Stevie G, hasn’t faced a hundred different countries but he\’s played against a lot.
He summed up Friday night by saying, They’re top quality opposition. Different style of play, probably, to what we’re used to. So I think it’s a very, very useful exercise for us. We don’t like to lose but we’ve qualified for Brazil and we have to take certain things on the chin, learn from the mistakes.
Too right, Frank.
Chile was very useful exercise if we learn from the mistakes of last Friday night. We might play them in Brazil.