England 5-0 San Marino as Valid as Any Other World Cup Qualifier

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: October 12, 2012

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Rarely has there been less enthusiasm for an England international among the members of the media than there was for Friday night's World Cup qualifier against San Marino at Wembley.

Plenty of column inches were devoted to how pointless the match was, how the tiny landlocked republic didn't deserve to be playing the fifth best team in the world. The ragtag bunch of semi-professionals, drawn from a population smaller than the capacity of Ewood Park, had no business clogging their way around such hallowed turf.

While it has to be admitted that playing the joint lowest-ranked team in the FIFA family is not exactly the most salubrious of fixtures, the main source of the press pack's annoyance is probably that they had to spend their Friday night at Wembley when they had better things to do.

Not that such party-pooping stopped more than 84,000 fans travelling to the national stadium, and they were rewarded with a 5-0 win that takes England to the top of Group H ahead of next Tuesday's far more taxing away fixture in Poland.

Those in attendance were made to wait longer than expected for the goals to start flowing, mind. Even as early as five minutes into the match, each misplaced pass was met with groans from the stands as England tried to play their way through the 10 men stationed behind the ball. Every time goalkeeper Joe Hart got a rare touch, it was greeted with ironic cheers.

Spread bets were ruined and drinking games fell flat as England took a full 35 minutes to score against a team which has only ever won one match in its history, a 1-0 victory over Liechtenstein back in 2004.

But quickfire goals from Wayne Rooney and Danny Welbeck had the hosts 2-0 up at the break, with each adding another in the second half before Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain rounded off the result 13 minutes from time.

It is hard to imagine manager Roy Hodgson learned anything new from watching his players have what...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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