If for some insane reason you weren't glued to your TV/PC screens watching the glorious game of football played to perfection by a new look England, you missed out badly.
England simply gave Croatia a lesson in football. The youngster Theo Walcott was knocked unconscious by one of the Croat thugs, but picked himself up and smacked in a hat-trick, it was just sublime football, even Rooney put one in!
Going into tonight's game Croatia had never lost a competitive game of football in Zagreb, but that was to change in the most shocking manner.
Croatia, the team that put paid to England's Euro '08 dreams, by beating them at Wembley last year, were the victims of a well executed revenge attack.
Apart from a nervy first ten minutes, and in spite of some horribly thuggish play from a frustrated Croatian team, England totally dominated. I don't know what happened to Croatia, last year they looked light on their feet and a decent footballing team, but maybe they were suffering a little over-confidence going into their home match against a resurgent England.
They seemed to have no answer to the new found spirit of Cappello's England, and resorted to some of the dirtiest play I’ve ever seen in a world cup qualifier. Their team would've been better served by kicking the ball rather than their opponents.
England's heroic players will be sporting their share of cuts and bruises tonight, but two of them suffered far worse than the others.
England play-maker Joe Cole was stretchered off after a cynical Croat elbow smashed into his skull, leaving him unconscious with blood spewing from his head. The offending Croat was sent off, without complaint. But, unbelievably when virtually the same treatment was meted out to Theo Walcott the offender got off with just a yellow card. Although Theo’s hat-trick will have gone a long way to anesthetizing the pain of the knock.
Maybe FIFA have a new rule; if a player returns to the field of play after being knocked out, the offending player will only receive a yellow. Only if the victim is taken to hospital will an offender be sent off.
The referee was atrocious, England had a clear penalty denied, when Heskey was literally wrestled to the ground in the penalty area, and had a great individual Lampard goal disallowed as Heskey was harshly deemed to have fouled a player although they were not interfering with play. In addition, the clearly intimidated referee allowed a Croat consolation goal to stand even after their forward had kicked the ball off Terry's head, dangerous play in most referee’s books, but not one judging a match in front of 100,000 angry Croats it seems. Croatia got their undeserved consolation.
With the un-awarded penalty, the disallowed goal that should’ve stood and the Croatian consolation that shouldn’t have the game could’ve easily finished 6 or 7-0. That’s aside from the amount of dangerous play, and a hat full of red card offenses left unaddressed, still a contrived 4-1 will have to do.
Although I like things being even and fair and in this case they palpably were not, I am still happy with the result. England stay top of their group and what’s more important they looked like a quality team for the first time under Cappello today.
If I wasn’t English I’d say this was a sign of brighter things to come, but then again, I am….
INGERLUND! INGERLUND! INGERLUND!
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