This midweek international fixtures have been a mixture of good and bad news for my sporting interests. The England supporter side of me is very happy as Capello’s men have won four out of four for the first time ever in a world cup qualification tournament to put themselves in a very strong position. England are well clear at the top of the table, five points ahead of nearest rivals Croatia. There is still a long way to go in this qualifying process but it seems that whatever Capello has done is working a treat, I expect England to continue to dominate now they have gotten that Wembley win monkey off their back! Right then, the game, Steven Gerrard repaid Capello’s faith in him with one of his trademark long range efforts finding the bottom corner of the net leaving the Belarussian keeper with no chance after 11 minutes. Instead of Gerrard’s goal putting the Belarussians on the back foot, it made them more determined and pushed forward requiring David James to make a number of excellent saves. The inevitable eventually happened on in the 28th minute when Pavel Sitko lost his marker to head home to level the scores. Five minutes after the half time interval Wayne Rooney made it 2 -1 to the Englishmen but credit has to be given to the resurgent Emile Heskey for his run and pinpoint pass to set up Rooney. As Belarus pushed forward again the Manchester United forward put the game out of the reach of Belarus in the 74th minute picking up on Gerrard’s neat pass to calmly lob the ball over the Belarussian keeper. Gerrard had the opportunity to make it 4 – 1 but managed to hit the post of an open goal after rounding the Belarus keeper. The way that England are playing at the moment under Capello, never mind the quarter finals that the FA expects from Italian, why not aim to win the whole tournament? Which personally I think should always be the goal, why play to be anything other than the winner? That makes no sense, you wouldn’t hear the Brazilian’s stating they’ll play to get the quarter finals? That’s a very negative attitude to have.
It’s not so good for my domestic football aspirations as Liverpool top scorer Fernando Torres limped off with a hamstring injury in Spain’s midweek tie with Belgium. The Spaniard is expected to be out for 10 to 15 days meaning he’ll miss Liverpool’s premiership ties with Wigan and Chelsea and also the Champions League fixture with Atletico Madrid. I have said many times that I hope that Torres doesn’t get injured as he is key to Liverpool’s premiership aspirations. Let’s hope that he can make a quick recovery and be fit just in time for the crucial game with title rivals Chelsea on the 26th October, but things aren’t looking hopeful right now!
In non-sports related issues, apparently Icelanders are now enemy #1 of the British after the UK government (read: idiotic bureaucrats) froze assets of Icelandic banks after the collapse of the Icelandic banking system. It’s not so much that the assets have been frozen but the manner in which it has been done. Gordon Brown (read: useless twat) used the anti-terrorist act to take this action. And rightfully so the Icelandic people are rather pissed off with being branded terrorists. The Icelandic people are probably the most peace loving friendly people you could ever want to meet. I should know, I have a very good Icelandic friend, Tomas who I don’t have a bad word to say about, really top man, even if he is a totally crazy (he’ll agree with me on that, seriously).