Very few of us expected England to get anything out of their trip to Zagreb (just 33 per cent of Spoiler readers felt a win was on the cards), but somehow the national side turned out their best performance in ages.
Even after a 3-0 win against Chile at the weekend, Man City’s new Christ, Robinho, was livid. The Chileans hadn’t lined up against he and his Brazilian cohorts with the right quota of respect - the idiots had tried to play them at their own game! So he did what any infuriated artist would do - he punished them with some brutal changing room graffiti.
The scary thought that everyone is pondering but nobody is brave enough to say is that if Fabio Capello, who has won league titles with every club he has managed, can’t turn England around, then nobody can. And so far things aren’t looking too good.
Here are five reasons why England will lose to Croatia again, according to the prophets at chickendinner:
1. Since gaining their independence, Croatia are unbeaten in all 35 home qualifying matches.
2. Croatia have lost just one of their 16 competitive matches in 90 minutes under Slaven Bilic - an away qualifier against Macedonia when their Euro 2008 place was already confirmed.
Ahead of tonight’s crunch tie with Croatia, Fabio Capello has used his impressive new English language skills to tell us he believes the national team will perform better in Zagreb, where they will be free from the high expectations and boo boys of Wembley. However, confidence in England could not be lower, and the side’s only other visit to Zagreb (in October 2006) resulted in a 2-0 schooling.
So, should we believe that our overpaid underdogs can pull off a morale-lifting victory, or will tomorrow’s papers call for the head of a bespectacled Italian? Votes and comments below, please.
The one per cent of the UK’s population who managed to tune in the Satsuma Sports channel at the weekend needn’t watch the clip above, but the rest of us may not have been gifted the opportunity to see yet another lukewarm England performance until now.
It was a trademark lacklustre performance from the Three Lions, and while most fans ask why players tend not to play as well as they do in an England shirt as they do for their club, Chelsea fans were left asking the exact reverse of Joe Cole following his embarrassment-saving brace.
WC Qualifier, Sat, 7pm, Setanta Sports 1, Free £30 bet
Forget “five reasons England will win” - it’s unthinkable that they’ll do anything but. Instead, the best way to make money is on the correct score market. Odds of 11/2 are available on England winning 3-0 and here are five reasons why that is a good bet, courtesy of our friends at chickendinner:
1. Andorra won’t score. They have gone ten home tournament qualifiers without scoring a goal.
2. Six of England’s last nine victories have come by a 3-0 scoreline.
The best goal of the European Championships thus far is undoubtedly Pepe’s opener against Turkey on Saturday, but elsewhere in the world an even more impressive strike hit the onion bag. The video above is from a World Cup qualifier between Australia and Iraq, where the latter’s Emad Mohammed banged one in from 35 yards.
Impressive stuff, particularly as the Aussies were one of the first nations to send troops to the conflictuous nation and they only pulled out last week.
