England Hit Minnows for Six in Wembley Mismatch

England finished their season with a routine 6-0 victory over Andorra, their seventh consecutive win in qualifying, to leave them on the verge of qualifying for next year’s World Cup in South Africa.

Wayne Rooney opened the scoring after just three minutes and scored another before his withdrawal at half-time. Frank Lampard netted in between as England strolled to a 3-0 lead after forty-five minutes.

Jermain Defoe, who replaced Rooney, scored twice after the break before Peter Crouch rounded off the scoring to complete an easy win for the Three Lions.

Fabio Capello made three changes to his side from the weekend victory against Kazakhstan. David Beckham came in for the suspended Gareth Barry whilst Joleen Lescott was preferred to Matt Upson at the back.

Peter Crouch got the nod up front over Emile Heskey who was presumably rested being one yellow card away from suspension.

England started quickly against the part-timers and Rooney could have scored twice before he eventually found the net in the third minute. First the Manchester United forward turned to force a decent save from the ‘keeper before heading against the bar from close range when he probably should have scored after a Theo Walcott shot rebounded to him.

However, he didn’t have to wait long for his next chance as Glen Johnson’s cross from the right easily picked him out to head in at the far post.

Theo Walcott cut back for Frank Lampard to double the lead just before the half hour before Rooney netted his second with a controlled finish on the volley after another Johnson cross from the right.

The brace made it ten goals in his last seven games for Rooney and moves him one clear of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Edin Dzeko as leading scoring in the European Qualifying section with eight.

Capello withdrew both Rooney and Gerrard at half-time with Defoe coming on up-front and Ashley Young replacing Gerrard on the left.

Yet England despite their complete domination England had to wait until the last 20 minutes before they found the net again, with Defoe heading home from a short corner, Glen Johnson again providing the assist.

Three minutes later and Defoe doubled his personal tally for the night, tapping in after the Andorran ‘keeper spilled a relatively tame Beckham free-kick.

The rout was completed with ten minutes to go as Peter Crouch finally got on the scoresheet after several near misses, getting a toe to force the ball home after Defoe had shanked his attempt at a hat-trick.

Overall the match was a fairly poor spectacle and Capello would have learned precious little from his players against such opposition that raised more questions as to why there isn’t some sort of pre-qualification requirement for countries ranked 196^th in the world like Andorra.

England should require only one more victory to win the group and assure qualification and face Croatia in their next World Cup Qualifier in September.

England: R. Green – G. Johnson, J. Terry (c), J. Lescott, A. Cole (W. Bridge, 63) – D. Beckham, F. Lampard – T. Walcott, W. Rooney (J. Defoe, 46), S. Gerrard (A. Young, 46) – P. Crouch

Andorra: J. Alvarez (J. Gomes, 89), J. Ayala, J. Garcia, O. Sonejee, A. Lima (M. Vales, 47), I. Lima, S. Moreno, M. Vieira, F. Silva (J. Fernandez, 79), M. Jimenez, X. Andorra

Elsewhere in Group 6 Ukraine came from behind to defeat Kazakhstan in Kiev. The visitors took a shock lead after twenty minutes, Tanat Nusserbayev with the goal. However, Ukrainehit back with two goals from Sergiy Nazarenko either side of halftime to avoid an embarrassing result and maintain their push for a play-off place.

Group 6 Results, Fixtures and Standings

Wed 10 June     England 6 – 0 Andorra

                        Ukraine 2 -1 Kazakhstan

Wed 12 Aug      Belarus vs. Croatia, (Minsk)

Sat 5 Sept         Croatia vs. Belarus, (Zagreb)

                        Ukraine vs. Andorra, (Kiev)

Wed 9 June       England vs. Croatia, (London)

                        Andorra vs. Kazakhstan

                        Belarus vs. Ukraine, (Minsk)

                        P   PTS

1. England         7   21

2. Croatia          6   11

3. Ukraine         6   11

4. Belarus         5   9

5. Kazakhstan   7   3

6. Andorra         7   0