Today I'm going back eleven years to 2011 and England's visit to the Millennium (that's 2 L's and 2 N's spelling bees!) Stadium, Cardiff to play Wales in the Qualifiers for the European Championships held in Poland and Ukraine in 2012. Sometimes I grumble about the quality of programme covers but not this time! It's a thing of beauty showing a gigantic Welsh dragon and a tiny little English lion. Who knows, maybe it's to scale? For those of you Welsh language freaks out there, this game pitted Cymru against Lloegr (no, me neither) in Caerdydd. Now go and wipe the spit off your screen!
The attendance in Wales' largest domestic stadium was a sell out of 68,959. Gary Speed's Wales had already lost their four preceding qualifiers and were surely already all but out of the competition. Certainly Welsh luck was not about to change when, in just the sixth minute, Aston Villa's Ashley Young was brought down in the penalty area by Villain of the piece, Aston Villa's James Collins and the spot kick was awarded. Up stepped Frank Lampard and England were one-up. Things were only going to get worse for Wales when Ashley Young crossed for Aston Villa's Darren Bent to convert the simplest of chances in front of goal. It was Bent's third and last goal for England in a career that ran to 9 caps. There weren't even 15 minutes on the clock, Fabio Capello's England were two-up and the game was effectively over. The rest of the game proved to be something of a damp squib with Wales reduced to shooting (inaccurately) from distance and England sat on their comfortable lead. Don't let anybody tell you that there's no such thing as an easy game in international football! This was surely an easy game! The game also proved to be the fourth and final international appearance for Tottenham's Michael Dawson who didn't seem to put a foot wrong in this match.
England went on to win Group G of the European Championship Qualifiers unbeaten with a record of 5 wins and 3 draws. Second place, perhaps surprisingly, went to Montenegro who advanced to two-legged Play-Off tie against the Czech Republic which they proceeded to lose 3-0 on aggregate. Switzerland finished third in the Group and Wales fourth with Bulgaria collecting the wooden spoon.
CRB Match No. 1803
Comments
Post a Comment