After the NFL this was NFL – Numbing. Flat. Laboured. For almost an hour.
In the end England made the hard yards, driven forward by their captain, their latest centurion, Wayne Rooney, who gained his 100th 'golden’ cap in what was, for so agonisingly long, far from a glittering display. But England gained the victory and in the final reckoning that is what counts.
Following the gridiron, the clash of two American Football teams that so churned up the Wembley pitch less than three weeks ago, England took an iron grip on Group E. Four matches, four wins, 12 points and qualification for Euro 2016 appears all but secured.
By then Rooney will not only have pushed well beyond 100 caps, and probably gone very close to Peter Shilton’s record haul for England of 125 appearances, but will hope to have also overtaken Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 49 goals.
Rooney’s penalty against Slovenia — which he won with a typically forceful, slaloming run which is a movement he has trademarked over the years — was his 44th goal and took him level with Jimmy Greaves in third place on the all-time list.
But, as Greaves would say, it’s a funny old game. Indeed up until Jordan Henderson, who was not at his best, inadvertently provided the spark by heading a free-kick beyond England goalkeeper Joe Hart to furnish Slovenia with an unlikely lead, this felt more like a wake than a celebration. And it was hard to stay awake for much of it as England sleepwalked.
Until they registered their unexpected three goals in just 13 thrilling minutes — with Danny Welbeck claiming two to take his tally to five in this qualifying campaign — this was certainly not the event that Rooney would have imagined and dreamt of and craved for as he was presented with that cap by Charlton prior to kick-off.
Jack Wilshere later said England were becoming horrible to beat. For a while they were simply horrible.
It appeared it would be all about England running out of ideas, looking flat and listless and showing precious few signs of progressing from their World Cup disappointment. Plus a deserved shoeing for the Football Association for chasing the dollar — quite literally — in allowing those American Football teams, the Dallas Cowboys and the Jacksonville Jaguars, with their huge, hulking players to run riot over the Wembley turf. So much for a sacred surface.
There were dark patches and scars all over the turf which, evidently, also cut up although not as roughly as England manager Roy Hodgson had feared.
“We had two systems of play up our sleeves because we didn’t know quite how the pitch would play,” he said.
The cheeky response to that would have been to ask whether one of those systems was to play badly and the other to then play a little better?
No, Hodgson meant that England would start the midfield diamond that he is currently favouring but which, frankly, did not work and might be questionable against unambitious opposition such as Slovenia as his team got bogged down and unable to provide the necessary width to stretch obdurate adversaries who sat deep and waited to counter.
It was not before England fell behind but also switched their approach — by pushing Welbeck and Raheem Sterling wide and making it more a 4-3-3 — that they started to carry a threat. Maybe the worst thing Slovenia could have done — for them but certainly not the occasion — was to score.
Had they held out for more than two minutes, however, then this match might have turned a little more ugly than Rooney and Hodgson and the FA would have expected.
Was it possible Rooney would have led a team that was then booed off on his 100th appearance?
“It was a good day in the end,” a relieved captain said afterwards. “We had to show character and that will be good for us in the team. Since the World Cup we haven’t faced that. It really woke us up and we went and showed what a good side we are.” But why did England need that alarm call?
Maybe that last claim of a “good side” was pushing it a little but reviewing the first-half action there was, well, very little of it apart from an encouraging debut at right-back from Southampton’s Nathaniel Clyne and a stray elbow from Slovenia captain Bostjan Cesar on Adam Lallana that went unnoticed by the officials.
So we should move along quickly and fast forward to the 57th minute and that own-goal by Henderson as he met Jasmin Kurtic’s free-kick ahead of Kevin Kampl — only to send the ball past a stunned Hart. But England did respond immediately, with Wilshere finding Rooney, who thundered into the penalty area, holding off challenges and trying to find the space to shoot before he was tripped by Cesar.
Centurion: Wayne Rooney scores from the spot Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Slovenian goalkeeper Samir Handanovic has an outstanding record of saving penalties — he had stopped his last five — and he leapt across to get a hand to Rooney’s kick. Fortunately for England the effort was powerful enough and Rooney had his goal and the narrative started to switch to what was expected.
England pushed on and quickly gained the advantage. The ball ricocheted around the Slovenian penalty area with Lallana’s low cross deflected goalwards for Handanovic to block with his legs. It was flicked away by Miso Brecko straight to Welbeck who mis-hit his shot only for the ball to wrong-foot the goalkeeper and bounce into the net.
Welbeck was not finished. After Kieran Gibbs’s cross was turned back to his fellow Arsenal player, the striker exchanged passes with Sterling, following earlier involvement from Clyne and Lallana, and forced his way into the area with neat control — off his thigh — where he opened up his body to shoot across Handanovic. It was a fine goal, out-of-kilter with what had proceeded it, and it ended any doubt.
“It would be very churlish of me after a 3-1 victory over a major rival for the group to start criticising the players,” Hodgson countered (“major rival”, really?). “A game lasts 90-odd minutes and you don’t get exactly what you want from the first minute. We dominated but it was sterile at times but in the second-half and especially after Wayne’s quick equalising goal, the game opened up and we found a way of creating them more problems. In the group we are in a good position.”
The win meant Hodgson could also feel some breathing space before England reconvene in March — and he could turn to praising Rooney which is probably what he had expected to be doing. “He got the 100th cap and he picked up a goal and led England to victory,” the manager said. “I am delighted for him.” Delighted and relieved.
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