Football story by Boris Webb, Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:32:00 GMT


LONDON - England humiliated Greece 4-0 in the friendly match with both John Terry and Steve McClaren enjoying dream starts to their reign as captain and coach respectively. John Terry heralded a new era in English football by opening the scoring in the 15th minute. Chelsea teammate Frank Lampard scored the second while Peter Crouch bagged two goals.

The performance was a far cry from the world cup, with organized midfield and a solid defense and the game was played at a high tempo, unlike the lethargic performance in Germany. The difference was in the tactics as McClaren's first team consisted of as many as 8 players who had featured at the world cup with Beckham dropped and Joe Cole and Wayne Rooney being injured.

Both Lennon and Wright-Phillips did not feature in the starting lineup with McClaren fielding Steven Gerrard on the right side and for once Gerrard showed that he could play for his country in the same way that he does for his club.

Advertisment

However the stars of the match were Stewart Downing and Owen Hargreaves. England opened the scoring in the 15th minute from a free kick. Lampard crossed the ball to Crouch whose header was poorly cleared by the Greek keeper Antonios Nikopolidis, and Downing headed the ball in for Terry to score his first goal as the captain of his country. Defoe, who many thought should have featured in Germany, constantly troubled the Greek defense and at the half hour mark found Lampard in the area who, even though was fouled, had his shot deflected by Paraskevas Antzas into the goal.

Five minutes later Downing picked Lampard at the edge of the six-yard box and though Nikopolidis parried his shot, Crouch was there to tap the ball into the net. Crouch netted a second, two minutes from half time, after he headed in a Downing cross to take the score to 4-0.

Second half saw Kirkland coming in for Robinson and though England did not score, they played out a solid defensive game. "I waited weeks for this. I am very proud, and I know I am in a very privileged position. I have been in the set-up for a while, but to me leading it is different. There are big challenges ahead", gushed McClaren.

However he was cautious saying that they need to be consistent in order to realize the team's true potential. "We now need to consistently produce. That's the key word - consistency. We got a lot of things out of this, particularly the way we controlled the ball and kept possession. At this level you have to keep the ball, so that was pleasing", he added.