All in all, a very good performance and an excellent result. The defending was hardly iron-clad, but England created considerably more chances than the Swiss – and certainly created considerably more opportunities to create chances – and looked brighter, smarter and fundamentally better than their hosts. Tonight’s team can be improved upon in several areas – right-back, centre-back, holding midfield and attack spring to mind (I think Welbeck is pretty good, but is at the beginning of a process of post-United reinvigoration and will be more convincing in future) – but as Rooney said they at least have something to build on.
That’s all from me. Cheers for the emails and the company. The last word, though, goes to Roy Hodgson. Look out for an exemplary use of the Hodgson favourite phrase “aggravate the score”. Bye!
I never lost faith. I’m just pleased to see the boys play well. I thought the way we approached the game was exactly what we wanted, and we got our reward for once. It was a good performance away from home against one of the better teams in the group.
In the first half they were content to let us dominate. You need that first goal to open people out. Then they come at you, and when they came at us I thought we could have aggravated the score on many occasions before Danny finally did.
They got better as the game went on but luckily we didn’t deteriorate too much. We can do better. There’s areas where we’ve really got to improve. But you can’t expect players playing their early games, even making their debuts, to not make some bad decisions. They’re areas we can work on and we’ve got a couple of years to do so.
Glenn Hoddle keeps saying “counteracting” when he really wants to say “counter-attacking”.
A couple of brief post-match player interviews. First, England cap’n Wayne Rooney:
I thought we played some great stuff today. We defended well as a team and we took our chances. We caught them on the break with the speed we’ve been talking about, and it’s a great result for us first game.
I think we all knew the game on Wednesday was going to be difficult, coming off the World Cup. We got the victory we wanted, but tonight was the most important game. We’ve worked on our defensive shape when we haven’t got the ball and then springing from defence to attack. We’re pleased. The things we’ve worked on have paid off and it’s something to build on for us.
And England brace-scorer Danny Welbeck:
We created a number of chances where we could have done better with the final pass, but you could see the work ethic, everyone playing for each other.
In the World Cup England fielded a largely familiar team and they played like strangers. Tonight they fielded a team of relative strangers, and their performance was really exceptionally decent. This is a massive advance.
Much more like it tonight from England. Sterling outstanding again. Please Roy, no return to the plodding 4-4-2 again.
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) September 8, 2014
Final score: Switzerland 0-2 England
The referee blows his whistle for one last time, and England have won! They have won!
Updated
90+5 mins: “I’m feeling pretty sure we’re going to win the 2018 World Cup,” writes Clive Darwell.
GOAL! Switzerland 0-2 England (Welbeck, 90+4 mins)
Sterling leads another break before passing to Lambert, who turns into all sorts of space, draws Djourour and then passes to Welbeck who takes the ball into the area, draws the keeper and passes into the corner.
Updated
90+4 mins: … allowing the Swiss to counter-break, with Rodriguez ending the move with a shot that deflects into the arms of Hart.
90+3 mins: An enjoyable end-to-end finale, with the Swiss pressing for an equaliser and England breaking dangerously. The last break ended when Welbeck’s pass missed Sterling but found Delph, who surrendered possession too easily.
90+2 mins: Sterling breaks, with only Lambert up with him. He waits for Welbeck to join him and then, his team-mate having expended 60 yards of sprint energy, shoots high and wide from just outside the penalty area.
90+1 mins: Three seconds of first-half stoppage time, five minutes in the second.
90 mins: Another substitution, with Rooney coming off, Lambert coming on, and Gary Cahill donning the armband.
88 mins: This has been an uncommonly decent England display. There’s been effort, decent passing, enormously frustratingly occasional poor passing and good teamwork. As a result, Switzerland have looked extremely average (when in fact they’re only quite average).
86 mins: Jagielka’s clearance is seized upon by Sterling, who tries to find Rooney but locates only Djourou. No worries, though, because Djourou finds Rooney and suddenly either he or Welbeck could have taken a shot. Rooney kind of does, but not much of one, and England win, take and waste a corner.
84 mins: Switzerland are in charge here, with 10 white shirts behind the ball as Inler takes a touch, and then takes another touch, and then shoots over the bar from 25-ish yards.
83 mins: Djourou has recovered, and I think his challenge was 91% penalty and 9% good old-fashioned non-nonsense defending.
81 mins: Henderson’s cross is uncomfortably pushed away by Sommer to Delph on the edge of the area, who checks inside just as Djourou slides in. The defender gets ball and man but the referee keeps his whistle unpeeped, and Djourou seems to have been quite badly hurt by the collapsing Delph.
Updated
79 mins: Stones wellies the ball straight to Sommer for no obvious reason. He’s not had a wonderful game, but then he is quite young and being played out of position at right back, so we can forgive him.
Updated
77 mins: Phil Jones can henceforth make his desperate offside appeals from a seated position, having been replaced with Phil Jagielka. He still seems to be limping.
76 mins: Oooh! Stones gives the ball away, Rodriguez crosses and Seferovic volleys against the bar! And is offside! He’s got a decent volley on him, Seferovic. “I don’t want to be a Schweizerdeutsch pedant,” writes Stu Howes, who clearly does, “ but the chant is actually Hopp Schwiiz – which as those of us resident in the land of cheese and cow bell will know, is Swiss German. Other language chants are available, however as the Schweizer Nati (Swiss national team) play in the German-speaking side of Switzerland, this tends to be the most common.”
74 mins: Granit Xhaka is off, and Blerim Dzemaili is on. Blerim sounds like the name of a haemorrhoid cream.
Updated
73 mins: England make their first change, swapping Wilshere for Milner. And Shaqiri’s wicked, dipping cross is gathered by Hart with forwards circling.
72 mins: It should be noted that, while Cahill was busting a gut racing back to effect that clearance, Jones was standing about with his hand in the air.
70 mins: Oooooh! Drmic runs clear, aided by the fact that he was a yard or so offside when the ball was played, takes it round Hart and slides towards what he thought was an empty goal. It wasn’t, because Cahill was sliding in to block. A great chance missed, a fine clearance, and a terrible bit of linesmanship, that.
70 mins: Baines’ corner is bobbins, and though Jones does reach it he has to strain so much to do so that he immediately starts limping. The Swiss break, but Seferovic’s long-range shot flies wide.
69 mins: There was nothing much wrong with Behrami. England have a corner.
68 mins: England break, even though Behrami is writhing about off the pitch after losing the ball to Rooney. Whistles ripple around the stands.
66 mins: Drmic has his first touch, at the end of a break following Wilshere’s poor pass under pressure, and he carries the ball to the byline before pulling back into a dangerous area. No one has kept up with him, though, and England clear.
64 mins: Delph has improved massively since that early-bath-threatening opening 20 minutes, and is performing the possession-protecting, collect-ball-and-shuffle-it-to-teammate role that always comes in handy.
63 mins: A substitution! The hosts take off Admir Mehmedi, and bring on Josip Drmic.
61 mins: Lichsteiner runs into the penalty area from the right, and then falls over. All that pre-match and half-time pitch-watering might have provided us with a funny ITV-pundit-drenching moment, but it has done nothing for player stability. “What language do the Swiss fans chant in?” wonders Paul Flint. “They have three to choose from. Do they chop and change? Does it depend on where they’re playing? Or do they just keep everyone happy by mumbling an indeterminate, pseudo-European non-language like Pingu?” Hop Suisse is an international anthem, I think. And on tonight’s evidence there’s been a lot of cheap handout shaker/clapper things and of course plenty of cowbell.
GOAL! Switzerland 0-1 England (Welbeck, 58 mins)
An excellent England counter-attack, Sterling nicking the ball from Inler in midfield and popping it to Rooney, who carries it forwards before sliding it to Sterling, on his left. This time the first-time ball in is inch-perfect for Welbeck who, with the keeper stranded at the near post, can afford to let it bobble off his shin and still score.
Updated
57 mins: Top stopping! A cross from the left, Xhaka nods it down, and Seferovic slams a left-foot half-volley goalwards from just outside the area which Hart pushes to safety with an outflung left wrist.
55 mins: In fact Inler doesn’t shoot, but his cross comes off an England head to Xhaka, who does shoot, but it hits the nearest Englishman and flies behind.
54 mins: Baines fouls Shaqiri (in the referee’s eyes, at least – very little actual real human physical contact), 25 yards out, and Switzerland have a shooting chance here.
52 mins: Oooooh! A good move from England, who work the ball eventually to Henderson, bursting right. His final ball is excellent, but Sterling totally misses his kick and Behrami, behind him, very nearly diverts it into the corner of his own net only for the ball to roll a foot or two wide for a corner.
51 mins: Sterling gets into the penalty area on the left, executes a couple of perfect lollipops, and then crosses straight out of play.
49 mins: Some Swiss ball-hogging ends with Rodriguez crossing low from the left and Lichsteiner, coming in from the right, spooning his first-time effort over the bar as Baines dived in.
47 mins: Wilshere plays a one-two with Delph and has a shot from just outside the area that deflects off a defender and wide. “’One of England’s better first half performances’? That’s like saying you’re laid low with one of the least virulent flue strains you’ve picked up,” writes Nick Smith. I’m aware that it was faint praise, but praise it nevertheless was.
We're off! Again!
46 mins: Peeeeeeeeep! Half two is very much off and running.
The teams are back out, and England’s fans are lustily bellowing their anthem again.
One of England’s better recent first-half performances, I think. In particular, there’s been good movement by the front three, though both Sterling and Welbeck messed up what should have been open-goal-creating chances. There’s been some defensive fragility as well, with the Baines-Jones left half of the back four particularly fallible. The midfield three of Wilshere-Delph-Henderson could all improve, though (the Villa man’s pass completion stats notwithstanding).
100% - Fabian Delph completed all 26 of his passes in the first half vs Switzerland. Introduction.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 8, 2014
Half time: Switzerland 0-0 England
45+1 mins: We get three seconds of stoppage time, and the referee brings the first half to an end.
45 mins: Mehmedi finds space on the right and then finds Seferovic, whose volley is totally useless and easily cleared.
44 mins: Brilliant save! Same goalkeeper, same outcome, considerably less silly-looking stop. Rooney swings the corner in, and Jones heads low and hard, but Sommer does excellently well to get it away.
Updated
43 mins: Comedy save! England benefit from a bit of ricocheting ball-pong between Baines and Delph and it falls for Rooney on the corner of the penalty area, who spins and shoots low, and Sommer flaps it away.
41 mins: An OKish England move ends with an offside flag, Baines being caught out after being found by Rooney’s backheel. “The concept of Roy’s viciousness instantly made me think of Denis Healey saying that an attack from Geoffrey Howe was ‘like being savaged by a dead sheep’,” writes John Dutton.
37 mins: A slightly scrappy few minutes. I think this has been a decent first half from England, though they’re helped by some very low pre-match expectations. Also decent is this question from Gary Naylor:
If a lot of Jack Wilshere's best work goes unseen, is it because it's done in the gym or on the training pitch? @Simon_Burnton
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) September 8, 2014
Updated
33 mins: Good save! Jones gives the ball away to Shaqiri – really deeply shoddy work from the United man – and he slides in Seferovic, whose left-footed shot is stopped by Joe Hart’s leg.
32 mins: Ooooh! A swiss corner is headed clear by Welbeck to Lichtsteiner, running onto the ball and meeting it about 30 yards out, central, but his shot flies well over the bar. Not really close to scoring, but still worth an ooh, I thought.
29 mins: Enormous groan! Welbeck escapes down from the pretty hapless Von Bergen the right, with Rooney, Sterling and one defender to his left. He waits for the perfect moment before sliding the ball behind them both, and Switzerland clear. England should have scored there.
“I think it’s all in the delivery,” counters Phil Sawyer. “When Roy talks about displaying viciousness, you imagine your Granddad being a bit sharp about undercooked Yorkshire Puds. Whereas the Battle Fever is stated so matter-of-factly that it implies many levels of rage it could yet attain. I’m quibbling hairs, though. Roy talking about his moments of extreme anger and viciousness is indeed a strangely endearing thing.”
27 mins: Header! Welbeck pops the ball to Baines on the left, whose first-time cross finds Rooney, wide of the near post, whose header flies wide.
Updated
26 mins: An England move peters out with an overhit pass rumbling harmlessly out of play. Talking of substitutions, according to Uefa’s official team sheet there are 12 players sitting on the Swiss bench, and only eight on England’s. What’s that about?
25 mins: Delph keeps diving about, and the referee has just had another word. The excitement of an international debut seems to be getting the better of him. An early substitution, perhaps?
Updated
21 mins: A decent start this from England, though Delph is yet to shine and will be hampered by his early booking. “In other news of jaded teams looking for redemption, Spain seem to have their mojo back, pinging the ball about at speed, and 2-0 up (against Macedonia, it’s true, but still),” reports Charles Antaki. I hear rumours of a Sergio Ramos panenka in that game.
17 mins: Ooooh! Mehmedi slides in Seferovic, running beyond Phil Jones. The England player stumbles and falls, and then so does Seferovic. Was it a foul? If so, it’s surely a red card! No, it wasn’t a foul, decides the referee.
15 mins: A shot! And a save! Von Bergen gives the ball away to Sterling, who should have slid the ball to his right where Welbeck was arriving totally unmarked but instead found Rooney, who was swiftly closed down and shot low straight at Sommer. Criminal defending, upon which England should have capitalised a little better.
12 mins: A shot! A terrible shot! Rooney nudges left to Sterling, whose early left-foot shot comes off the outside of his foot and bobbles gently wide. “I’m sure I’m one of hundreds, ok tens, ok maybe just me to say that while Roy’s ‘moments of extreme anger and viciousness’ may be rather pleasing, it will never supplant the Battle Fever,” writes Phil Sawyer. I’m not sure. It’s the viciousness I really like.
10 mins: Shaqiri takes the free-kick from the right and floats it straight into Joe Hart’s hands. The England keeper sends the ball quickly to Sterling, scampering over the half-way line, and a few moments later Wilshere’s dinked pass finds Rooney in the penalty area, but his control is poor and he’s dispossessed.
9 mins: A better few minutes from Switzerland ends with a silly booking for Delph, who despite his recent ticking-off slides in late on Lichtsteiner.
6 mins: Behrami takes the ball from Delph and gets nobbled in retribution, but there’s no booking, not even a free-kick, though he does get a bit of a ticking-off when the ball next goes out of play.
Updated
3 mins: Delph does well on the left, bursting through a challenge, but his pull-back is too strong for Sterling. A massively encouraging, or at least not at all discouraging, first 180 seconds this for the visitors.
Updated
2 mins: A long, cross-field ball from Cahill flies straight out of play; Switzerland helpfully hand possession right back again, and Henderson finds Rooney in space, but offside.
1 min: England have been massively domionant so far. Thirty seconds played. Thought I’d write that while I can.
We're off!
1 min: Peeeeeeeeep! Referee Cuneyt Cakir blows his whistle and England get the ball very literally rolling.
The anthems have been sung, and there is now nothing between the world and this football match (except some ads on the telly).
The players are coming out! We’re going to have football! Anthems and a bit of other pre-match guff, but then football!
Roy could probably do with having a sprinkler trained on him, to cool down his red-hot rages. I can’t remember a better press-conference quote than “There are always moments of extreme anger and viciousness in my coaching sessions.” Brilliant.
Great banter from the Basel sprinkler system. Great. Banter. pic.twitter.com/a3PFdD4oQ1
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) September 8, 2014
“For all England’s failings as a footballing powerhouse this team does not contain the sort of odious characters that little Englanders used to relate to and flock to Wembley to see,” writes Ian Copestake. “I for one see this as a good thing.”
Also on ITV, Adrian Chiles and the gang have just been roundly soaked, or at least emphatically sprinkled-upon, by a pre-match sprinkler. Kind of like a mass ice bucket challenge, only without the ice, the bucket, and the charity.
Roy Hodgson has been speaking to ITV, about Fabian Delph, Jack Wilshere, and anxiety:
We’re playing a system which is probably more similar to the way we finished the game against Norway to the way we started, and in that system Fabian’s very adept. It’s the position he plays for his club side. Jack will if you like be the base of the diamond where we hope he’ll get on the ball and start attacks for us. Jack is a very gifted player, a player we want on the ball as much as possible. In this system, I’m rather hoping it’ll give him the chance to get on the ball more than another system would.
I think they’re confident. They’re very used to playing together. They’ve come back from the World Cup and received a lot of praise, as opposed to us I suppose. The thing we have to conquer today is fear, that the players are frightened that something will happen and we won’t get the result. The worst thing for players is that players will go out anxious and that’ll affect their performance.”
Good-face-for-radio dept:
“Jonathan Wilson may well be (as per usual) correct about Lichsteiner et al ‘galloping’,” writes Lou Roper, “but can any defence that includes the wretched Djourou risk such adventure?” Djourou is no defensive colossus, but this is two-shots-against-Norway England.
The treats keep on coming: here’s a dog with a scarf.
For the record, the teams in non-Twitter-based-form:
Switzerland: Sommer, Lichtsteiner, von Bergen, Djourou, Rodriguez, Behrami, Inler, Xhaka, Shaqiri, Seferovic, Mehmedi. Subs: Hitz, Benito, Senderos, Widmer, Frei, Stocker, Dzemaili, Fernandes, Kasami, Drmic, Schar, Burki.
England: Hart, Stones, Cahill, Jones, Baines, Wilshere, Henderson, Delph, Sterling, Welbeck, Rooney. Subs: Forster, Rose, Jagielka, Chambers, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Townsend, Lambert.
Referee: Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey).
Also on Sky: “Gaizka, how many of these players would get into the Spain team?” “None, because they’re English.” Wham.
Here’s an article from a year ago, written by Steven Pye of That 1980s Sports Blog, on a previous qualifying clash between these teams, which almost cost England a place at the 1982 World Cup.
“I think he’s got great legs, I’ve been really impressed with Delph,” adds Terry. “He gets around the pitch really well.”
From from JT: “For me Wayne’s still one of the best players in the world and the right choice for captain. When you’re not performing, he’s the first one to let you know that it’s important we win. And that’s the mentality we want to show.”
John Terry has a suit on and is talking tactics on Sky with Jamie Redknapp. He’s a bit overreliant on nicknames for my liking. “I think with Joe and Gaz being the spine of the team, and Wayne as well, it’s really important that they play well, that they kind of lead the team tonight,” he says. “Jonesy, he’s got the place in front of Jags tonight which could be a blessing for him, but it’s important that all the players coming in take their opportunity.”
The Guardian’s tactical guru Jonathan Wilson isn’t enormously optimistic about England’s line-up:
If that really is a diamond from England, is there not a danger Lichtsteiner and Rodriguez will run amok down the flanks?
— Jonathan Wilson (@jonawils) September 8, 2014
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and Fabian Delph does indeed get his widely-touted full debut in midfield, with Danny Welbeck starting in attack. Of the XI that started Friday’s win over Norway Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the thigh-strained Daniel Sturridge drop out, with Jordan Henderson’s injury obviously being less serious than feared.
@england: 1 Hart 2 Stones 3 Baines 4 Henderson 5 Cahill 6 Jones 7 Wilshere 8 Delph 9 Welbeck 10 Rooney (c) 11 Sterling #SwivEng
— England (@england) September 8, 2014
@england: 12 Rose 13 Forster 14 Jagielka 15 Chambers 16 Milner 17 Chamberlain 18 Townsend 19 Lambert #SwivEng
— England (@england) September 8, 2014
Switzerland Team: Sommer, Lichtsteiner, Von Bergen, Rodriguez, Djourou, Inler, Xhaka, Behrami, Shaqiri, Seferovic, Mehmedi #SwivEng
— England (@england) September 8, 2014
Fabian Delph starts tonight #SwiVEng. He will wear the No.8 shirt. Kick-off 7.45 UK time. #AVFC
— Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) September 8, 2014
Hello world!
So, England v Switzerland, Roy Hodgson in the dug-out, and minds inevitably go back to Euro 1996 and a rather dismal opener for the hosts. True, Hodgson had left Switzerland by then, but the team still bore his thumbprint. The game finished 1-1, with a particularly memorable miss from Marco Grassi probably the highlight of the day (Hodgson had given him his debut, and was later to be rewarded as Grassi played in the Lyon team that knocked his Blackburn out of Europe a couple of years later). Talking of highlights …
Updated
Simon will be here soon. In the meantime, here’s Daniel Taylor on whether Roy Hodgson can show some passion:
Roy Hodgson could be found in the Berlin suite of the Radisson reminiscing on an earlier part of his long managerial career when he had been “half-promising my wife I would finish at the age of 60”. Several years on, it is fair to say Sheila is probably entitled to ask her husband what happened. Hodgson will be almost 69 by the time the European Championship comes around in two years and nobody should be too surprised if he follows Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alex Ferguson as football men who said they would not work into their 70s and did precisely the opposite.
One of the popular misconceptions about the England manager is that he does not have the same fires burning in him as others in his profession. The word people like to apply is “passion” and his little outburst last week, applying some industrial language to pepper his thoughts about the line of questioning, clearly came as a shock to many people. Yet it should not have.
“First of all, I’m not a calm person,” Hodgson said. “I never have been a calm person. As any player who has worked with me would attest, there are always moments of extreme anger and viciousness in my coaching sessions. I’d rather be accused of being a bit over-robust [rather than angry] in response to questions I didn’t agree with.
