England 5 San Marino 0

Match 25/12/978 - Friday, 12 October 2012 - World Cup Qualifying

England (2) 5 Rooney 35 (pen), 69 Welbeck 38, 71 Oxlade-Chamberlain 77
San Marino (0) 0
Att. 85,654

Entrance: £20
Programme: £6
Mileage: 155/1,717

Match Report

After 30 minutes of huffing and puffing, England put the minnows of San Marino, officially one of the three worst teams in the world, in their place. By the finish, five goals had been scored from a total of 33 efforts on goal against just one, hopelessly wide, effort from the Sammarinese. If the referee had taken the correct course of action for what amounted to common assault on Theo Walcott by the visiting goalkeeper after just three minutes, then, in all probability, England would have chalked up a cricket score. Which begs the question, why are these one-sided games necessary? The answer is, of course, because FIFA want to offer the same opportunity to the Turks and Caicos Islands as they do to Brazil, but in these times when international football is so beholden to the major clubs, can this approach continue to be justified.

In the cricket world cup, the Cayman Islands and Nepal have a route to the Finals but are not asked to pit themselves against Australia or South Africa in the opening rounds. Likewise, in tennis’ Davis Cup, despite the presence of Andy Murray in their ranks, Great Britain has not the necessary strength to be matched against Spain or the United States.

In these days when it is club football that calls the tune, a pre-qualifying tournament for countries with a low ranking would reduce the group sizes by a least one and cut two meaningless fixtures from the crowded calendar. It could be contended that, by playing nations of comparable strength in competitive fixtures, the opportunity for confidence building victories are of greater benefit than humiliating defeats at the hands of the major powers. Referring back to the cricket world cup, Afghanistan is a perfect example of what can be achieved through a qualification event.

The FA’s marketing team did a job akin to that of selling ice to eskimoes to get nearly 86,000 through the turnstiles on Friday evening. They recognised that San Marino was going to be their hardest sell during this qualifying group, they slashed ticket prices, we paid £20 each for a ticket on the half-way line, and their initiative was rewarded with a sell-out crowd.

San Marino arrived at Wembley, famous only for Davide Gualtieri’s goal against England back in 1993, scored in record time of 8 seconds. Since their entry into World Cup football in 1990 they have never won a game, scored only 14 goals and conceded 463, even against a less than highly regarded England team this was a complete mismatch.

As for the game itself, England took a while to get into their stride following the horrific challenge on Walcott who was literally wiped out by the goalkeeper having lifted the ball over him. That the referee failed to award a penalty and red card to the offender is no justification for the challenge. Despite having made some fine saves in the intervening period, there was a sense of justice when England finally made their breakthrough on 35 minutes when Simoncini once more made an ill-judged excursion from his goal line to plunge at the feet of Danny Welbeck, catching his trailing leg. This time the referee awarded the penalty, yellow carded the keeper and Wayne Rooney confidently dispatched the kick. Barely two minutes had elapsed before Aaron Lennon got to the bye line and pulled back a cross for Welbeck to repeat his trick from the Sweden World Cup tie to back heel the ball into the net.

The one-way traffic was obviously going to be the continuing storyline of the second half and once again it took some while to break down the minnows 10 man defence and having finally managed it in the 69th minute, another goal came along two minutes later. Firstly, Rooney fastened onto a loose ball after Lennon had run across the face of the goal, to score from the edge of the box and then Welbeck converted Tom Cleverley’s cross. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain curled in from outside of the box with an exquisite finish to complete the expected rout.

San Marino came to London and did all they could. They put a complete set of bodies behind the ball at all times, they possessed a goalkeeper that at times was inspired and at others utterly useless, but Simoncini’s assault of Walcott apart, they played the game within the rules, unlike another minnow that visited Wembley, Andorra, who came and cynically kicked lumps out of their hosts. Andorra are another good reason for pre-qualifying, why should the likes of Arsenal be deprived of a player for whatever time because an opposition’s only form of defence is cynicism.

At the end of the evening, England won 5-0, there were a couple of eye-catching performances that are cheapened by the lack of opposition and the only real satisfaction that could be taken from the game was that it only cost twenty quid.