England vs Croatia preview

By: Martini Extra Dry | September 9th, 2008

$Don\'t look!$ The England national side tonight face the toughest game in their qualifying group; away to Croatia. No-one in England will have forgot the misery of Croatia dumping us out of Euro 2008 at the qualifying stages just under a year ago. I was in Nebraska at the time and I rented the game out on pay per view, so the $35 bill and lack of like-minded gutted people around me just added to the bitter taste in my mouth!

Euro 2008’s qualifying group matched us against both the opponents we have again faced this last week; Andorra and Croatia. In that group Croatia topped it with 6 more points than us, while Andorra held the group up with an unfortunate total of zero points! Thats right, they lost all 12 games, conceding 42 goals and only finding the net twice. So it wasn’t overly encouraging to see us struggle to penetrate them on Saturday, especially when you consider that Croatia put 13 past them without reply in the 2 Euro games.

A thrashing was what everyone wanted on Saturday, and come the end of the campaign it’s not unimaginable that a few more goals will become very important. This group contains Croatia, who are probably favourites and are ranked 10 places above England by FIFA, and Ukraine, who will most likely be battling with us for the second qualifying spot. Does that make me sound pessimistic, optimistic or realistic?

The game will be a huge test for England and the result is very likely to colour the rest of England’s campaign. A win will see the country (and more importantly, the country’s press) get behind England and cheer them on again, in a way that was kind of lacking from the Andorra game. A loss will see the team and manager berated and the national pride in the team will plummet. A draw will see the country’s opinions stay where they are, waiting on the home game with Kazakhstan on 11th October before they get heavy handed with any praise or criticism.

So let’s get behind the team tonight, let’s cheer at the telly so loudly that they can hear us through it! COME ON ENGLAND!!!