March 26, 2013
| Andy West is a sports writer originally from the UK and now living in Barcelona. He has worked in professional football since 1998 and specialises in the Spanish Primera Division and the English Premier League. Follow him on Twitter at @andywest01. |
MARCH 26 — Qualification for next summer's World Cup finals in Brazil is moving swiftly towards the decisive final straight with another batch of fixtures today, and in the European zone two traditional heavyweights face must-win away games against their current group leaders.
In Group H, England's campaign got off to a disappointing start with draws against Ukraine and Poland, leaving them two points behind surprise packages Montenegro ahead of tonight's meeting between the sides in Podgorica.
And in Group I, reigning world and European champions Spain have left themselves in a hole with back-to-back home draws against France and, most surprisingly, against Finland on Friday. They now travel to Paris two points adrift of their French hosts, knowing that anything less than victory would leave France in a very strong position to qualify as group winners.
England and Spain would both have the fall-back option of a two-legged play-off for group runners-up, but they would clearly much prefer to avoid that scenario.
With dangerous teams like Portugal, Croatia and Sweden also struggling to top their groups, there will be some very good teams in the play-offs and, of course, there's always the possibility that they would be drawn against each other. England vs Spain in a play-off for a place in the World Cup finals would make compulsive viewing for the rest of the world, but would be a nightmare scenario for the two countries concerned.
Although both England and Spain are more than capable of winning tonight's respective away games in Montenegro and France, their tasks are by no means straightforward.
Roy Hodgson's England warmed up for their trip to Podgorica with a pretty pointless 8-0 victory at San Marino, whose inclusion in the qualifying phase is the best possible argument in favour of Arsene Wenger's idea that the weaker countries should contest a preliminary phase before joining the big boys.
San Marino is more of a large hill than a country. Its population is just 32,000 and the national football team has only ever won one game — a 1-0 friendly triumph against fellow minnows Liechtenstein nearly a decade ago. England's stroll to victory on Friday night, therefore, cannot be regarded as anything more than a training exercise; it will bear no relevance to the action that unfolds tonight.
And Montenegro will present a very competitive challenge. It is one of the world's newest countries, having only gained independence from Serbia in 2006, and possesses a batch of very good footballers despite its meagre population of less than a million (perhaps serving as the best example of why Wenger's proposed preliminary stage would be a bad thing...).
First and foremost is the captain, striker and emblematic figure of Mirko Vucinic, who has established himself as one of the best forwards in Europe during his seven years in Italy's Serie A, initially with Roma and now with title holders Juventus.
Vucinic is a clever, versatile player who can operate with equal effectiveness on the wing, as a centre forward or a deeper-lying creator. His link play is exceptional, with outstanding ability to hold up the ball and bring his teammates into the action in dangerous areas. He scored the crucial late winner in his team's 1-0 win at Moldova on Friday, and will undoubtedly be the key man for his country tonight.
But Vucinic is by no means Montenegro's only danger. In particular, Fiorentina striker Stevan Jovetic will pose a big threat to England, having further enhanced his reputation with another strong season in Serie A — he scored twice in a 4-2 thrashing of Inter Milan last month.
The only previous meetings between Montenegro and England — during the 2010 European Championships qualifying campaign — both finished as draws, with Wayne Rooney's "red mist" dismissal in Podgorica attracting the most attention in the build-up to this evening's encounter. England should win tonight, but another stalemate would be no great surprise.
Spain's trip to France assumed a must-win nature after a shock draw for Vicente Del Bosque's team against lowly Finland on Friday in what must rank as the biggest surprise of the qualification campaign so far.
It wasn't a particularly poor performance from the Spanish — they played with typically composed fluidity and utterly dominated possession. But they badly lacked a cutting edge, creating only a handful of decent scoring chances against the disciplined Finns, who grabbed an unlikely late equaliser after catching Spain's defence asleep on the counter attack and scoring with their only shot on target.
Spain were missing two key players in the shape of Xavi and Xabi Alonso, who will return to action in Paris tonight, but their reintroduction into the midfield might not do much to address the team's lack of attacking penetration.
Del Bosque has recently favoured the striker-less "false nine" formation used by Barcelona, with the key difference that his team isn't able to call upon the services of Lionel Messi. Tonight might be the time for Spain to return to a traditional centre forward, with the country's all-time leading scorer David Villa in prime position to fill that role following his recent strong club form with Barca.
Under the wise management of Didier Deschamps, France are in something of a transitional phase as promising new players such as Real Madrid's Raphael Varane and Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba are introduced into the fold.
Like Spain, their biggest problems are in attack where first-choice striker Karim Benzema has been in poor form all season. The Real Madrid striker has gone 993 minutes without a goal for his country and would have been dropped long ago but for the fact that France's strength in depth in the goalscoring department is rather modest indeed.
Spain will be determined to prove that Friday's disappointment against Finland was a mere blip and that they should still be regarded as the best team in the world. With the added motivation of the top spot in the group also up for grabs, they should be good enough to claim the points.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
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