9.10.05 - England 1 - 0 Austria. Wales 3 - 2 NI. Ireland 1 - 0 Cyprus. Belarus 1 - 0 Scotland
England came into this match after losing to Northern Ireland and many were hoping for a 5-0 rout but they were dissapointed. Still tough England are in the Germany 2006 world cup for sureThe game was mostly dull with few goal chances. England had two strong penalty appeals, one of which was given. Michael Owen was held back in the box and Frank Lampard was there to cooly score the penalty (25min). Joe Cole was denied an obvious penalty later on in the 1st half. The performance was poor and Rooney was missed. Austria even hit the bar in the 2nd half with a volleyed lob but that wasn't the worse for England. Beckham was booked for jumping to head the ball - a very harsh and strange decision. Then again he was booked - the referee was conned by the same diving Austrian or maybe the ref had a personal hatred of Backham who once called that same Spanish ref a 'son of a whore'. England won and are in the world cup finals but people are still calling for Sven's head.
Despite the fact only 1 or 2 of the players starring in this game could ever make it into an England squad this was 10x more thrilling than the England game. In this game their was goals, misses, excitement and two sides with nothing to lose. Both sides could not qualify for the next World cup anyway. Over half these players were from the lowly football league but this match was possibly the best top-level match of the season. It was inevitable this game would be better than the unnamed match of later on, but the contrast was unbelieveable. The game was quite even but Wales scored the 1st goal on the hlaf hour mark when things were still close. Then when they scored again 10 minutes later it looked but for Northern Ireland. The finishing touch seemed to be here when a Wales player was blatantly fouled in the penalty box. HoweverTaylor (NI's goalkeeper) saved a penalty which kept NI in the game and kept the game alive. In the 2nd half NI made a comeback with some sublime football to make the scores 2-2. However after Taylor's heroics Wales scored a free kick that embarrased him to take the game to 3-2. For the rest of the game there were countless chances and bundles in the penalty area but nothing came of it and Wales won the game.
It looked to be a great day for Ireland when they took the lead after 6 minutes thanks to Elliot. The Ireland fans were not happy though as they had to bite their nails for another 84 minutes. The worst moment was when Cyprus won a penalty that Shay Given managed to save. A poor performance from Ireland but another win should see them through to the world cup.
Scotland won't be going to the world cup. Very poor qualifying performances. I don't think Scotland fans will be rooting for England though.