England woke up from their dream before "tiny" Andorra

Hosting the world's 174th ranked team at home, England struggled, scoring only 2 goals despite holding the ball for 82.8% of the match.

This match of different levels was scheduled to take place at the "holy land" of Wembley. However, because the national stadium was chosen as the venue for Coldplay's performance, the England team had to move to Villa Park - which can only accommodate about 40,000 spectators and this match was about 1/3 empty.

faded identity

Anyone who does not come to Villa Park can be considered "lucky" not to have to endure a boring performance from the home team, not least because of the 170-place gap compared to Andorra in the FIFA rankings.

Throughout the match, apart from Christian Garcia's own goal and Declan Rice's header, the home team's attacking stars worth hundreds of millions of pounds - with Harry Kane, Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke, Marcus Rashford - only had a few chances to threaten Andorra goalkeeper Iker Alvarez's goal.

England awaits the decisive match against Serbia in 3 days. Photo: UEFA

Andorra have gone 14 consecutive official matches without scoring a goal. It doesn't matter because they are a weak team, only "gaining" and not having to worry about "losing" anything when facing big teams!

In the first leg at home in June, Andorra made the English "sweat" to win 1-0. They almost repeated the score in England if not for an own goal from Christian Garcia. Andorra played a tight defense and only conceded 2 goals to the European runners-up, a commendable effort from the team under coach Koldo Alvarez.

In the past 5 qualifying matches, Andorra always arranged 10 players to follow the ball from the beginning to the end of the match, building "walls" in the penalty area. Andorra showed that winning against them is not easy, even against the "giant" England...

The effect is not worthy

Unlike his predecessor Gareth Southgate, coach Thomas Tuchel always respects all opponents and is extremely serious when arranging the squad. It's just a pity that England, full of good players, could not overwhelm the "tiny" Andorra.

Former England star Roy Keane believes that England's problem is "old wine in new bottles" - they cannot get rid of the "bad" habit of passing the ball out wide and then back to the back line. Both goals of the "Three Lions" in this match came from crosses from the wing, which is something that Harry Kane and his teammates should have done a lot.

"English football at all levels has many goals from the wing. If England forgets this style of play, it will no longer be... England!" - the former Man United captain emphasized.

Since Thomas Tuchel took charge, England have played four World Cup qualifiers and won all four. A 100% efficiency and clean sheet so far may not be an explosive start but it is a solid foundation - something any manager would want to see in a new cycle.

The real test for the Three Lions will come when they visit Serbia in Belgrade next week. They will have to maintain their form while finding ways to develop their attacking ability if they do not want to ruin their peaceful days and find joy in the entire World Cup qualifying campaign.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/tuyen-anh-tinh-mong-truoc-ti-hon-andorra-196250907214623492.htm