Estonia

0-3

England

 

Cole 37, Crouch 54, Owen 62

Euro 2008 Qualifying Match, Group E
7.30pm, Wednesday 6 June 2007
A. Le Coq Arena,
Tallinn, Estonia
Live on Sky Sports



Joe Cole is delighted to be injury-free and back to his best after his opening goal helped England to a 3-0 Euro 2008 qualifying win over Estonia.

He said: "It’s been a long old season for me and I’ve only been back playing two months. It’s been nice getting back with England and nice that the manager’s kept in touch. It’s also nice to be back with the lads and hopefully helping us qualify."

On his first-half goal, Cole added: "I knew the angle was tight and I knew I could only take a maximum of two touches. It’s nice when they go in, but it could have easily have gone into the top tier of the stadium. Every now and again, one of those go in, and it was that nice tonight.

"There’s a lot of pressure on us in these games, but this was the best start we’ve made for ages. We were in their faces, everyone was making tackles in midfield and tactically we had it spot-on because we’d had them watched. The first 20 minutes was where we had the game won, even though we weren’t 1-0 up, because I think they knew we were up for the game and we’d break them down eventually.

"You can’t anyone lightly. We played well for the whole 90 minutes. We pressurised them when we had to, and we kept the ball when we had to. Even the front two were working back. It was a real workman-like and professional performance."

And on a man-of-the-match performance from former captain David Beckham, the Chelsea midfielder continued: "Becks has come back, he was brilliant the other night and he was brilliant tonight. You know what you’re going to get from him – the delivery was spot on. He just made the runs, and if he can keep doing that for us, we’ll be delighted."

Teams

Estonia: 1 Mart Poom, 3 Andrei Stepanov,5 Dmitri Kruglov, 2 Enar Jaager, 6 Aleksandr Dmitrijev, 4 Ragnar Klavan, 10 Konstantin Vassiljev, 11 Sergei Terehhov (17 Tarmo Kink 64), 8 Joel Lindpere, 7 Oliver Konsa (18 Tarmo Neemelo 46), 9 Vladimir Voskoboinkov

Subs: 12 Artur Kotenko, 13 Alo Barengrub, 14 Urmas Rooba, 15 Liivo Leetma, 16 Gert Kams,

England: 1 Paul Robinson, 5 Ledley King, 6 John Terry (c), 2 Wes Brown, 3 Wayne Bridge, 4 Steven Gerrard, 7 David Beckham (15 Kieron Dyer 68), 8 Frank Lampard ,11 Joe Cole (16 Stewart Downing 76), 9 Peter Crouch,10 Michael Owen (14 Jermaine Jenas 88)

Subs Not Used: 13 Scott Carson,12 Jamie Carragher, 18 Jermain Defoe, 17 Alan Smith