I'm Glad Stevie Wasn't There..

11 Oct 2006 Croatia 2-0 England - Euro 2008 qualifier

BBC - Eduardo's header had given Croatia a deserved 61st minute lead before keeper Robinson was involved in a nightmare moment eight minutes later. Gary Neville's back-pass struck a divot as Robinson went to clear, and he watched in agony as the ball rolled in. Robinson had previously produced a string of saves to keep Croatia at bay.
...what a mess.

England: 3-5-2 (what the hell..? 3 centre-backs!?)
Robinson;
Ferdinand, Terry, Carragher;
G Neville, Parker, Carrick, Lampard, A Cole;
Rooney, Crouch.

BBC pundits on England
Alan Shearer
" I can understand Steve McClaren trying to do things differently. Maybe he thinks we have played 4-4-2 for 40 years now and not won anything. But trying it in our most difficult away game I cannot understand. No-one plays this in the league so for 10 months you play 4-4-2, and so to come out and play it once a season is almost impossible.

With 3-5-2 you need pace up front or you don't stretch teams and the ball is going one way all the time. Wayne Rooney needs space to turn and Peter Crouch is a target man who needs to bring other players into play. No-one is running in behind the defence where Frank Lampard wants to play the ball. It makes it easy for defenders when Rooney and Crouch both go towards the ball rather than running behind defenders. It is too easy for defenders when they are not being stretched or pulled around.

I thought Paul Robinson was partly at fault for the first goal. From a corner he opted to punch away when he could have caught it and it never got cleared. It kept coming into the box and then when the cross came over he was still going forward - if he was in the right position he would have picked the ball up easily.

The second goal just summed up what a torrid evening it was for England. It was just a nightmare. The next competitive game is about five months away, which is a long time to wait to get rid of a bad result."