England beat Germany 2 – 1 in Berlin last night and in doing so became the first foreign side to win in the city since the 1970’s.
Despite missing 8 first team regulars, England were by far the better team throughout and were unlucky not to have won by a bigger margin.
As it was, they had to be content with 2 strikes from central defenders – man of the match Matthew Upson prodding home from a first half Stewart Downing corner and John Terry heading the winner from a Downing free kick. Shaun Wright-Phillips also hit the post with a fierce drive while substitute Darren Bent lost his footing when facing an open goal.
Germany’s goal came after Terry and Scott Carson, on in the second half for David James, failed to deal with a long through ball allowing Patrick Helmes to score.
That was perhaps the only blot on England’s copy book as all of Fabio Capello’s fringe players put in big performances.
Glenn Johnson was excellent at right back, Upson was a revelation alongside Terry, Wayne Bridge was solid at left back, Downing had his best game for England in a long while, Michael Carrick and Gareth Barry bossed the midfield, Wright-Phillips was a box of tricks down the right while debutant Gabriel Agbonlahor ran all night and gave the towering German centre backs a ton of problems.
It’s now 5 wins on the trot for Fabio Capello who said after the game:
We had a lot of chances to score goals and I like that we played with confidence and personality.
I’m very happy today because I saw some players play very well and I needed to know them better.
The result is important but the performance was very good.
We played here in Berlin against Germany, who are a very good team, and we played very well.
I have confidence in my team and we had the opportunity to get to know some players better who have not played a lot of games with me.
It shows the strength in depth of the squad, which is vital. You’re not always going to have everyone available.
Other selected international scores
Denmark 0 – 1 Wales
Scotland 0 – 1 Argentina
Rep of Ireland 2 – 3 Poland
Brazil 6 – 2 Portugal
France 0 – 0 Uruguay
Greece 1 – 1 Italy
Spain 3 – 0 Chile
