May 30th and I'm going back 15 years to 2006 and England's World Cup warm-up game against Hungary at Old Trafford.
England were in a prolonged period of taking their particular show on the road around the provinces due to Wembley's continuing construction. Between 2003 and 2007, England played 23 matches around the country and 12 of these were played at Old Trafford making it the most frequently used venue. The attendance for the Hungary game was well short of capacity at 56,323 (capacity at the time was 68,217). Today Old Trafford is even larger and can accommodate 74,140.
In the run up to Germany 2006, England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson was experimenting with his starting line up in a bid to find the right blend for the World Cup. In the run up to this game Sven had promised that the starting line-up would be the one that would kick off the World Cup in Frankfurt against Paraguay 12 days later. Why he would say such a thing is beyond me but, in the end, he was almost true to his word with only Jamie Carragher missing out on the World Cup opener and Peter Crouch getting the starting nod instead.
Sven's selection did contain a couple of surprises on the bench with a notable debut for Arsenal's Theo Walcott in this game aged 17 years and 75 days. He was and remains the youngest ever England cap (breaking Wayne Rooney's record of three years standing) and also the England debutante with the lowest number of club appearances (23) prior to making his England debut (extraordinarily none of the 23 were Premier League games either). From today's vantage point, one can look back on Walcott's career and conclude that he never quite delivered on his early promise although he has had a long and respectable career. Fifteen years after this game he's still turning out in the Premier League for his first club, Southampton and he ended his England career with 47 caps and having scored 8 goals. He had raw pace but he didn't ever seem quite able to master the ball properly in full flight and this resulted in too many missed opportunities.
Another England substitute that night was Liverpool's Peter Crouch. I was a strong advocate of Crouchie's mainly because I was incensed at the sniping and criticism coming from rather too many England fans who felt that he simply wasn't good enough. In my view Crouch's goal scoring record for England is right up there with the best (42 caps, 22 goals) and he was far more than the "Head on a Stick" that some regarded him as. His control on the deck was surprisingly good and you don't have the career that he had if you're as one dimensional as people made him out to be. I loved celebrating his goals for England (and there were plenty) as those around me had to eat their words. He was also quite a character and has gone on to have a decent career in the media post-football.
The game was fairly uneventful in the opening 40 minutes but exploded into life just before halftime. England were awarded a penalty for a foul on Gerrard which Frank Lampard took and.... missed! I thought his miss was something of a collectors item until I checked back and found that he scored only 49 from 58 for Chelsea not including a further 8 out of 10 in penalty shootouts. A record of a little over 80% that I imagined would have been better.
Right after halftime and birthday boy Steven Gerrard (26) scored with a header from a Beckham free kick. Three minutes later and another Beckham free kick led to another headed goal, this time from John Terry, his first for England. Hungary pulled a goal back in the 55th minute following an excellent strike from distance by Pal Dardai but England put the game to bed with the final goal in the 84th minute. It was their only goal not coming from a header and was scored by.... Peter Crouch! He celebrated with his trademark Robot dance (watch the video attached to my blog if you'd like to reminisce) as I looked at dozens of people with egg on their faces all around me. Happy days!
CRB Match No. 1502
Comments
Post a Comment