England 3-0 Russia
UEFA European Championship Qualifier
8pm, Wednesday 12 September 2007
Wembley Stadium
Live on BBC1
The familiar chant of ‘There’s only one Michael Owen’ reverberated around Wembley Stadium after the prolific forward took England a step closer to qualifying for Euro 2008.
The Newcastle striker his side’s first two goals as the Three Lions turned in arguably their best performance under Steve McClaren to clock up their fourth consecutive victory in Group E.
Owen scored in three of those games but it was his brace tonight – an instinctive finish and a crashing volley – that were pure vintage and took the former Liverpool hitman to 40 England goals, just nine behind Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time record.
Owen even had time to lay on a late goal for Rio Ferdinand as England climbed to second place behind Croatia.
On a mild evening under the lights of Wembley Stadium, Head Coach McClaren retained the same starting XI that comfortably disposed of Israel five days earlier.
It proved a shrewd move with three of the stars from Saturday’s victory involved during the early sparring.
The increasingly reliable Gareth Barry was in the right place at the right time to cut out Andrey Arshavin’s cross while crowd favourite Micah Richards and Shaun Wright-Phillips continued where they left off against Israel by linking up with pace down the right flank.
England had their first shot on target in the sixth minute when the impressive Emile Heskey flicked on to Joe Cole. With his back to goal, the Chelsea man showed great athleticism with an overhead kick that cannoned behind off Vasily Berezutskiy.
But the Three Lions did not have to wait long to take the lead. From the resulting corner, the ball was cleared only as far as Barry who found Owen six yards out.
Killing the ball dead, the prolific striker administered the deadly blow, clinically stroking in off the post.
England could have doubled their advantage three minutes later when Steven Gerrard poked the ball through to the galloping Heskey. However, Viacheslav Malafeev was alert to the danger, rushing off his line to bravely block at the burly striker’s feet.
The vocal Russian contingent thought their side had equalised after 19 minutes.
Dmitry Sychev’s blocked shot fell kindly to Konstantin Zyryanov who turned in the flash of an eye and drove low past Robinson. But the Russian cheers soon turned to jeers when referee Martin Hansson ruled the goal out for a handball.
Both sides traded chances – Wright-Phillips heading Cole’s cross over when he should have scored while Diniyar Bilyaletdinov extended Paul Robinson with a powerful strike from 20 yards.
Malafeev was called into action on the half-hour, diving to his right to theatrically beat away Cole’s deflected drive.
But there was nothing the Zenit St Petersburg keeper could do to prevent England going 2-0 up a minute later.
Heskey did supremely well to send a towering flick-on to Owen who unleashed an unstoppable volley into the top corner from the edge of the box.
Russia were a different side after the break and were unlucky not to reduce the deficit.
Dmitry Sychev flashed a shot across Robinson on 47 minutes and moments later England had another scare when the same player was just inches away from turning in Yury Zhirkov’s fizzing, angled drive.
The Russians continued to pile on the pressure in search of a route back into the game and they thought they should have had a penalty in the 51st minute when a clumsy Ashley Cole bundled over Vladimir Bystrov. Mr Hansson frustrated the Russians for a second time on the night, this time by waving play on.
Russia tried valiantly to summon up a late surge but Robinson was equal to Arshavin’s 77th strike which skimmed across the Wembley turf.
Wright-Phillips then forced Malafeev into an even better save three minutes later. Having seemingly taken too long to get his shot off, the winger sent an arrow towards the far corner which the Russian keeper did fantastically well to palm wide.
But Malafeev should have done better as England scored their third goal.
Owen played the ball inside to Ferdinand who sold his marker with an audacious dummy before blasting underneath Malafeev at the near post.
England
1 Paul Robinson, 2 Micah Richards, 3 Ashley Cole, 4 Steven Gerrard, 5 Rio Ferdinand, 6 John Terry (c), 7 Gareth Barry, 8 Shaun Wright-Phillips, 9 Emile Heskey (Peter Crouch, 80), 10 Michael Owen (16 Stewart Downing, 90+2), 11 Joe Cole (14 Phil Neville, 88)
Subs: 12 Wes Brown, 13 David James, 15 Alan Smith, 17 Andrew Johnson, 18 Jermain Defoe.
Goals: Michael Owen 7, 31, Rio Ferdinand 84
Head Coach Steve McClaren
Russia
16 Viacheslav Malafeev, 2 Vasily Berezutskiy, 5 Sergey Ignashevich, 10 Andrey Arshavin, 15 Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, 17 Konstantin Zyryanov, 18 Yury Zhishkov, 20 Igor Semshov (23 Vladimir Bystrov, 40), 22 Alexander Anyukov (11 Alexander Kerzakov, 80), 26 Dmitry Sychev (19 Roman Pavlyuchenko, 63), 27 Alexey Berezutskiy.
Subs: 12 Anton Shunin, 7 Dmitriy Torbinskiy, 13 Pavel Pogrebnyak, 25 Denis Koldin.
Head Coach Guus Hiddink
Kit Colours
England White shirts, Blue shorts, White socks
GK Aubergine shirt, Aubergine shorts, White socks
Russia Red shirts, White shorts, Blue socks
GK Green shirt, Green shorts, Green socks
Match Officials
Referee Martin Hansson (SWE)
Assistant Referees Stefan Wittberg and Henrik Andren (SWE)
Fourth Official Martin Ingvarsson (SWE)
Attendance 86,106