England

5-0

Andorra

Crouch 5, 67, Gerrard 13, Defoe 38, 47

 

 

UEFA European Championship Qualifier
5pm, Saturday 2 September 2006
Old Trafford, Manchester United FC
Live on BBC

Steven Gerrard has been confirmed as the official Nationwide England Man of the Match in the Qualifier against Andorra on Saturday afternoon.

The Liverpool skipper registered a sweet strike to give the Three Lions a 2-0 lead on 13 minutes and was in great form throughout, displaying his usual fine passing and delivery from the right-hand side of midfield.

In our online poll, Gerrard received almost 50% of the 14,135 votes registered, which took him away from other contenders Owen Hargreaves, Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch.

And Crouch was also full of praise for Gerrard following his performance at Old Trafford. 

"For me, he has been the best player in the world for a long time," said Crouch after the game. "I thought he was good when I first went to Liverpool but he is even better when you see him in training.

"He can do anything. He can pass, he can tackle, he could probably have played in goal against Andorra!"

Steve McClaren, England's Head Coach has a similar opinion of the 26-year-old midfielder he recent named as his vice-captain.

"He's been influential for Liverpool over the years and has changed games and won European Cups by himself," says McClaren.

"Now he's doing that for England so it's great for us. The best is still to come from him and all the players.

"He can get better. He has been a fantastic influence in some of the games he has won for Liverpool. We want to transfer that to England and he's started to do that over the last couple of games."

TheFA.com will be the place to vote for your Nationwide Man of the Match for all upcoming England games, including Wednesday night's qualifier in Macedonia when we'll have another short-list of players to chose from.