England Given a Lifeline by Israel
Yesterday was d-day for the England football team. It was the day they would learn their Euro 2008 fate. Would they go into the Croatia match on Wednesday knowing a win would take them through to the Euro 2008 finals, or would they go into it dejected and out of the running to qualify for the tournament.
It all came down to the Israel-Russia match. If Israel beat Russia then England would still be in with a chance to qualify, in fact qualification would be in their hands. Should Russia beat Israel however and England could kiss goodbye to any chance of going to Austria, Switzerland for the Euro 2008 tournament.
All English eyes were fixed on the Russia game. Israel scored first in the first half, but had a torrid time in the second half. The Russians battered the defence of Israel and socred an equaliser. However, a draw would still mean England could qualify. In the last 5 minutes of the game, Russia were very close to winning it, but a brave Israel defence stood firm and held out. Israel hit Russia on the counter attack in the dying minutes and snatched what was to be an unlikely 2-1 victory to keep England’s hopes of qualification alive.
We can thank Israel all we like, but the fact of the matter is, we should never have been relying on them to do us a favor. We should have been top and crusing to the finals, however we now go into Wednesday crunch game with Croatia knowing we need to get either a draw or a win to qualify. We go into the match without star striker Michael Owen, who picked up an injury in England’s friendly on Friday with Austria. It comes as a huge blow to McClaren who now must decide whether to play out of form Jermain Defoe or Darren Bent or to call up a young striker like Theo Walcott to partner Peter Crouch.
One thing is for sure, we never give ourselves an easy passage into tournaments.
Roll on Wednesday, i’m sure they’ll be a few sore heads on Thursday morning whatever the outcome of the previous night’s game!
So, who ever puts on the England football shirt on Wednesday needs to play with passion and pride to get us into the European Championships.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Its going to be wierd not having England at this major tournament but hopefully we’ll be there in 2010 for the World Cup!
December 27th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
What a dissapointment it was to see that we weren’t going to be taking part in this tournament. Ah well we have one of the best oversee’s manager’s in charge now, hopefully he’ll bring us success.