Even with the unconvincing 1-0 win over Austria yesterday, England books her place into the World Cup Finals to be held in Germany 2006 after Holland beat the Czech Republic away with a 0-2 victory.
Vedder asked me why the Holland game was so important, a question I asked myself too since no explanation was offered last night after the game. BBC has this to say:
The mathematics of England and Poland’s qualification are relatively complicated.
There are eight groups within the European section of World Cup qualifying, but some have seven teams and some have six.
Automatic spots at Germany go to the eight group winners, and the two runners-up with the best points tally.
However, to avoid an advantage going to countries in seven-team groups – where more games are played and thus more points available – the runners-up in those groups have their records against the bottom-placed team expunged.
That means the Czechs, who have 24 points, lose two victories and revert to 18 points.
So whoever comes second in Group Six out of Poland and England will definitely be one of the two best runners-up, and will be going to Germany for the World Cup.
In a nutshell, England is lucky to get thru with such mediocre performances especially over the past few games or so. She has not been convincing as to have the potential to win the World Cup next year when you compare her to teams like Brazil.
I would still like to think that England have a chance as on paper Sven’s men are a pretty formidable lot. As the Austria game illustrated, going 4-1-3-2 was a pretty good formation although I have to agree with Allen Hansen that England lacked “shape”.
Zaaba’s England XI below. Create your own (via BBC)!
With substitutes: D James, G Neville, L King, S W-Phillips, P Crouch. Lets just hope that Smith’s retraining to become Keane’s replacement jadi!
