With an under strength team and European and World Champions, Spain, the visitors – nobody gave England a chance. After a week of controversy surrounding FIFA and their reluctance to allow England players to wear a poppy on their shirts (claiming it to be a ‘political gesture’, the game itself had barely been spoken about. Something else that had dominated the headlines was the ongoing investigation into whether England and Chelsea captain racially abused QPR defender, Anton Ferdinand. Capello had confirmed a couple of days prior to the game that Terry would be unavailable for the clash with Spain for ‘footballing reasons’. England were missing several other key players too – Rooney, Gerrard and Wilshere to name a few. The Spanish however were at full strength and English fans would have been fully aware of the threat posed by Torres, Fabregas and Villa. The first half was relatively dull and lifeless: Spain were very comfortable on the ball, as to be expected but created very few genuine goal scoring opportunities and England created even less themselves. Shortly after half time, things got a lot better for England when Frank Lampard nodded in James Milner’s free kick. The virtually anonymous Bent played a key role, leaping higher than two Spanish defenders to set up stand-in captain Lampard but this proved to be the Aston Villa striker’s only significant contribution of the match. However the English supporters didn’t seem to care - they were ecstatic, hardly believing they were a goal up on Spain, who in recent times have rarely known defeat (although their record in friendlies against so called ‘bigger sides’ has been less than convincing). England knew they had to be resilient to sustain the lead and Spain had many chances to pull a goal back; Villa hit the side netting soon after Lampard’s goal and substitute Fabregas came close on two occasions. After an anxious and nervy end to the mach, Wembley collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the referee blew his whistle for full time. Parker and Lescott particularly impressed for England, with the former picking up the man of the match award.
It can be argued that this victory counts for very little due to it only being classed as a friendly but take nothing away from the three lions – a depleted England side defended brilliantly and managed to beat a team jam packed with Spanish superstars. If we are serious about winning Euro 2012, we’ve got a lot of improving to do but Saturday proved that England can compete with Europe’s elite and not get blown away. Despite a disastrous campaign at the World Cup campaign in South Africa, there is still belief in this side from supporters and the management alike.
England’s next challenge is against Sweden at the Home of Football, with an even younger and inexperienced team expected to start.
