England National Football Team Match No. 864

Trinidad & Tobago 0 England 3 [0-2]

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Match Summary and Report

Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain, 1 June 2008 - The team that faced Trinidad & Tobago.
Back row - Steve Gerrard, Dean Ashton, Rio Ferdinand, David James, Glen Johnson, Jonathan Woodgate.
Front row - Wayne Bridge, Jermain Defoe, David Beckham (captain), Stewart Downing, Gareth Barry,.

Match Summary

Trinidad & Tobago Team

88th in FIFA ranking of 7th May 2008; 84th in Elo world ranking before this match and xth after this match.

Trinidad & Tobago Lineup

Trinidad & Tobago Substitutes

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England Team

11th in FIFA ranking of 7th May 2008; =8th in Elo world ranking before this match and xth after this match.

England Lineup

England Substitutes

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Match Report

 

England were comfortable winners in their friendly in Trinidad & Tobago.  Gareth Barry put England ahead on 12 minutes when he volleyed home following good work by Stewart Downing and Wayne Bridge down the left.  Four minutes later Downing laid on the second for Jermain Defoe, who tucked the ball past goalkeeper Clayton Ince.  Defoe got his second from a David Bentley cross just after half-time but the Portsmouth striker later missed a chance to claim his hat-trick.

It was a second routine win in five days for England coach Fabio Capello, who will have been pleased with a professional performance from his side on a difficult pitch and in unusual conditions.  Some criticised the decision to fly thousands of miles for a friendly against opposition of questionable qualities at this stage of the season.  But Capello was able to get a good look at plenty of his fringe players in what turned out to be a relatively competitive environment at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

Trinidad & Tobago had talked about gaining some revenge for the defeat in their World Cup meeting two years ago.  But any chance of an upset in a game arranged to mark the centenary of football in Trinidad & Tobago lasted just over quarter of an hour.

The home side had already lost star striker Kenwyne Jones of Sunderland to a knee ligament injury when they fell behind after 12 minutes.  Downing sent Bridge clear down the left and he picked out Barry, who steered the ball past Ince with his left foot from inside the area.  The second came four minutes later with Middlesbrough's Downing sending Defoe clean through on goal and he kept his head to tuck home his first goal for England since September 2006.

It looked like England could threaten a cricket score on the Caribbean island but the Soca Warriors enjoyed their best spell of the game.  They caused some nervous moments at the back, with the pace and skill of Sunderland's Carlos Edwards and the bulk of Southampton striker Stern John making sure this would be no holiday for the England defence.  Edwards was involved in their best move of the match, setting up Darryl Roberts after some good work from Khaleem Hyland down the left, but Roberts' shot was easily held by David James.  Defoe and Dean Ashton missed chances to add to the scoreline before the half-time interval signalled the start of a glut of changes.

One of the new additions was Bentley, who took over from England's stand-in skipper David Beckham to set up the third goal.  The Blackburn star sent in a right-wing cross which T&T could not clear and Defoe was handed the simple task of volleying past Ince.

Defoe should have scored his first international hat-trick only to miscue wide but then combined brilliantly with his second-half strike partner Peter Crouch for one of the best passing moves of the game, but the Liverpool striker was denied by a sprawling Ince.

A noisy home crowd of 25,001 got their wish when their favourite Dwight Yorke was handed a 15-minute run out.  He was unable to mark his brief return from international retirement with a goal but it was still smiles all round for the home nation, and for Capello for a job well done.  England's players will now head off on holiday after a long season, although they will wish it was not all over with Euro 2008 kicking off in less than a week. - BBC Sport

Source Notes

 

Fifa was unhappy that England made one more than the maximum six substitutions in the 3-0 win, although the Football Association thought it was pre-agreed.  Four England players could have lost their first caps after Fifa said the 3-0 friendly win over Trinidad and Tobago may not be rated a full international.  Dean Ashton, Joe Hart, Phil Jagielka and Stephen Warnock all made their first appearances for England.  But the victory was in danger of being erased from the record books.  Fabio Capello made seven changes in total - four at half-time, and three more later in the second half.  And that left Fifa unhappy and considered whether to downgrade the match from an official A international.  A Fifa spokesman said: "We can confirm that Fifa did not give special dispensation to make up to seven substitutions at the Trinidad and Tobago versus England match.  We have spoken internally at Fifa about the matter and nobody allowed this to happen."  However, the FA was under the impression such a decision had been agreed - and it is believed it had originally asked to make 11 changes.

Sources

BBC Sport
TheFA.com
SkySports.com
ESPN Soccernet
Guardian.co.uk
TheSun.co.uk
and Roger Baker for adding the Trinidadian stats.

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CG