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England In Action
By Simon Hopper
Last updated: 08:44 Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Fabio Capello has his last chance to tinker with World Cup Qualification tactics on Wednesday as England welcome the Czech Republic to Wembley.
This is the final fixture before the Three Lions head to Andorra on 6th September to try and heal the painful wounds of Euro 2008; ‘wally in a brolly’ et al. Though their group contains former nemeses Croatia (ranked 5th in the world), the rest of the group compromises sides ranked from 28th to 182nd so a passage to 2010 should be more straightforward.
Capello has a surprisingly strong squad for this one, with only one player (Michael Carrick) withdrawing through ‘injury’; and Carrick’s predicament actually appears to be genuine.
He has raised one or two eyebrows by his striking selections: omitting the likes of Peter Crouch, Darren Bent & Dean Ashton (now injured) in favour of Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Theo Walcott & Emile Heskey.
The Italian has made a solid start to his tenure, with 3 friendly wins out of 4, but the defeat against France highlights a fundamental historical weakness with England: an inability to beat sides ranked above them in the world.
They haven’t won any of their last 8 games against superior teams, including 2 European Qualifying defeats to Croatia as well as home friendly losses to Spain & Germany last year. In fact, you have to go back to November 2005 for the last time England won one of these games (3-2 vs Argentina in Geneva). With the home side ranked 14th in the world and the Czechs up in 8th, the visitors clearly qualify into this category.
Despite criticism that Petr Rada’s side is now too old to win a major trophy, they were within 3 minutes of qualifying for the Euro 2008 knockout stages until a dramatic collapse against an excellent Turkish outfit. A better indication of their form lies in the qualifying stages, in which they were outstanding, with 9 wins out of 12 and just 1 defeat (to Germany). This is also their last game before travelling to Northern Ireland for their first WCQ game on 10th September so there will be an equal degree of seriousness attached to this game for the away side. However, their away friendly record is poor, with no wins in their last 3 on the road over the past 12 months (against Denmark 1-1, Poland 0-2 & Austria 1-1).
Friendlies are notorious for stinging punters who get involved in the match odds and Wednesday’s game is no exception. Both coaches will be keen to give game time to as much of their squad as possible and the constant stop start nature of these games makes it very difficult to predict the outcome with any certainty. Furthermore, England’s terrible record against good teams must be taken into consideration. The Premiership season has only just kicked off and the players will surely still be blowing away the summer cobwebs.
At the same time, the Czechs’ early exit from Euro 2008 and poor record on the road in recent years makes them hard to back with any confidence.
Usually, only one thing is for certain in these games: a low goals tally. You have to go back to August 2006 (10 games) for the last time there were more than 3 goals in an England friendly, and that was a 4-0 victory against the Greeks. Furthermore, they only conceded 7 goals in 12 games in their ECQ Group so there is clearly nothing wrong with the defence. And the strike-force, with a half-fit Rooney, Defoe (5 goals in 28 games), Heskey (5 in 45) & the untried Walcott hardly inspires confidence that the floodgates will open.
Only once in their last 7 friendlies has a Czech friendly seen more than 3 goals, and an ECQ record of 5 goals conceded in 12 games is a clear indication that their defence is just as strong as England’s. Their key playmaker Tomas Rosicky is injured & two of their three strikers have three international caps between them (the other being the inconsistent Milan Baros).
Its very hard to see any of these low goal trends being turned over here and even at the short price under 2.5 goals is recommended.
Recommended Bets - Under 2.5 Goals, 8/13 General