Today I'm going back 13 years to 2009 and England's World Cup Qualifier against Belarus. The match was England's 880th-ever International and was played at Wembley attended by a near capacity 76,897. The fixture was the only occasion on which Belarus have played against England at Wembley and their meeting with England in Minsk a year earlier was the only other occasion on which the two sides have met.
As stated on the cover of the programme, England had already qualified for the World Cup by beating Croatia 5-1 at Wembley the previous month. Since then England had travelled to Kiev and lost to the Ukraine in another qualifier. The game against Belarus wrapped up the qualification programme.
The least capped players in Fabio Capello's selection were Manchester United's Ben Foster and Aston Villa's Gabby Agbonlahor who each had three caps. Foster was of huge interest to me as I had seen him playing for Racing Club Warwick as a 17-year old and I had followed his career with interest ever since. Foster went from Warwick to Stoke City and then on to Manchester United although he spent much of the next nine years either out on loan or warming the bench. Between 2007-2010 Foster made just 23 appearances for United before moving to Birmingham City and then on to West Bromwich Albion and, finally, Watford. During his career Foster made over 500 club appearances as well as earning eight caps for England and finally retired from the game aged 39 just last month. Agbonlahor's third England cap proved to be his last.
There was another England player on show that night who was also making his last appearance for his country. Coming on as a 58th minute substitute in the game was David Beckham, earning his 115th and final England cap. It was an inspired substitution as Beckham's first kick resulted in a goal. Beckham has divided opinion throughout his career even into his post playing days and he continues to attract bitter comments to this day. I have heard suggestions that Beckham, who queued with the general public to pay his respects to the Queen at her recent lying in state, did so because he wanted a knighthood! He has also recently attracted a lot of negative comment over his decision to accept £150 Million to be an ambassador for Qatar, not just during the World Cup but for ten years. Personally, I'm an admirer of Beckham and I always felt that he was outstanding when playing for his country and made a fine captain and leader. The Qatari attempts at "sport washing" do not distract us from their terrible attitudes towards women, homosexuals or the safety of foreign workers. It's easy to criticise Beckham for accepting Qatari money but, when you're never ever going to be in the position to receive such an offer, such criticism is cheap in my view.
Perhaps more remarkable than who did play for England that night was who did not. Steven Gerrard and leading scorer Wayne Rooney were both missing from the line-up but, with qualification already in the bag, the match represented a chance for Capello to look at alternatives ahead of having to finalise his squad. In particular Peter Crouch took the opportunity of Rooney's absence to stake his claim for a place on the plane to South Africa. Crouch tapped home a ball squared to him by Agbonlahor after just four minutes and scored England's third goal in the 75th minute when following up a rebound for another tap-in. The goals were Crouch's 17th and 18th in an England shirt and he had now scored six goals in six starts for England. In between Crouch's goals, England's other strike was scored by Shaun Wright-Phillips whose 20 yard shot following a Beckham short corner took a heavy deflection on its way into the net.
England's Qualifying Group contained six teams and only the top team (England) qualified automatically for the World Cup Finals. Ukraine finished as runners-up and thereby went into a Play-Off with Greece to determine which of the two would go to South Africa (Greece beat Ukraine 1-0 on aggregate over two legs). The remaining four members of the Group who all failed to advance were Croatia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Andorra. All England needed to do now was to continue their promising form on into the South Africa and the World Cup would be theirs. Or perhaps not.
CRB Match No. 1716
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