Today I'm going back 17 years to 2004 and England's World Cup Qualification match against Wales at Old Trafford, Manchester in front of a sellout crowd of 65,224.
Sven-Goran Eriksson's England went into the match 7th in FIFA's world rankings with Mark Hughes' Wales side down in 57th place. We didn't have to wait long for the first goal. In the fourth minute, a shot from just outside the penalty area by Frank Lampard deflected off of Michael Owen's heel and past Wales' keeper Paul Jones for possibly the easiest international goal that Owen would ever score. He surely knew nothing about it and it was nestling in the back of the net! If England's first goal was fortunate, their second was borne of pure skill and came from a sublime curling effort from 25 yards by David Beckham which simply flew into the far top corner with Jones unable to do anything about it. With Wembley out of action due to reconstruction, Old Trafford was Real Madrid player Beckham's spiritual home and it seemed as if he saved all of his best and most important goals for the venue. Both of England's goals that day were scored by Real Madrid players in what surely must have been a first.
One note of controversy that happened during the game involved a booking for David Beckham. Beckham, already on a yellow card from an earlier qualification match. Beckham was involved in an incident during the second half and realised that he had broken a rib. After receiving treatment on the sidelines Beckham came back on the pitch and later admitted that he made sure that he collided with a Ben Thatcher to earn himself a yellow card and an automatic suspension from the next game (which he would have been unable to play in due to his broken rib). He limped off shortly afterwards.
England's World Cup Qualification group contained six teams with Austria, Azerbaijan, Norther Ireland and Poland being the other four nations involved. England eventually won the group and qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Poland took the other automatic qualification place finishing second in the days before Play-Offs were introduced. Wales finished fifth behind fourth placed Northern Ireland who managed to beat England at Windsor Park in a rare but inconsequential England qualification defeat.
CRB Match No. 1397
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