Little to be learned as England ease to simple victory over San Marino in World Cup qualifiers
This is not really football, or not as we have come to expect it at the sharp edge of the modern game’s hyper-conditioned technical supremacy, but like it or not, these were the accountants and PE teachers that Gareth Southgate’s England team have to beat for a place at the 2022 World Cup finals.
San Marino, the worst team in the world, should by rights be playing in empty stadiums, but for the rest of us the new reality is wearing very thin when the contest is as poor as this one. This was the start of the truncated journey to Qatar 2022 and while the Germany team joined Norway the previous night in protesting the treatment of migrant workers in the Gulf state, England’s journey there was not accompanied by any political message. It was just another forgettable demolition of a very poor team that has never won a competitive game in its history.
Hard to know quite what to take from the game as England’s countdown to the delayed Euro 2020 begins, other than to say that Harry Kane got the rest that Southgate had enforced and in his place Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored two to take his senior England goal tally to four in six caps. Jude Bellingham, a second-half substitute, became England’s youngest ever player in a World Cup qualifier at 17 years and nine months. Ollie Watkins scored on his international debut, little more than six years on from a loan spell from Exeter City at Weston-super-Mare AFC.
Indeed, Weston-super-Mare AFC might well beat San Marino themselves and certainly it might have been a more open game than this 90 minute-siege of the away side’s goal that a lonely Nick Pope witnessed from the edge of his area. Conor Coady ended the game as captain and the main obstacle to England reaching double-figures, as their possession merited was the players’ own erratic finishing as well as the performance of San Marino goalkeeper Elia Benedettini.
There must be a point to all of it but that lies a long way from a game like this, in the politics of Uefa and which federation votes for which presidential candidate. It is from that which the sovereignty granted San Marino flows, not in their football team which remains reliably unwatchable and entirely pointless if the international game is to be promoted and preserved as part of the elite.
The car salesmen and office workers of San Marino might be admirably committed footballers but there should be no place for them at this level if international football’s lustre is to be preserved. The worst team in the 210 on Fifa’s planet football were predictably dire in a first half in which they conceded three and might really have shipped a whole lot more.
Southgate selected a 4-3-3 formation but in reality he could probably have summoned the perennially underachieving Under-21s back from Slovenia and ordered them to avenge their defeat earlier in the day to Switzerland. It is hard to make any firm judgements about progress or the relative merits of one formation or one player over another. The Sammarinese sat flat on the edge of their box and waited for the execution to take place.
England missed a lot of chances before the break and there was no question that the standout San Marino player was Benedettini, a goalkeeper at Cesena in Italy’s third tier. It seems besides the point to say that he must get a lot of practice but he did make two fine saves in the first half, from first Ben Chilwell and then Jesse Lingard. On the second occasion the England man should really have scored but against San Marino that urgency to take chances is absent. There will be another one along soon.
Lingard was hardly the only one. Calvert-Lewin, selected as centre-forward, missed a couple and so did Raheem Sterling. Both would eventually score, first the Everton striker met a cross from Reece James with the sort of powerful jump and header that the part-timers in San Marino’s defence are not equipped to deal with. Sterling, captain in the absence of Kane, got the third, powering down the left and cutting the ball back onto his right foot for a shot at the near post.
James Ward-Prowse scored his first England goal in this, his fifth cap, within 14 minutes, and really, what better opportunity could there be? The Sammarinese have been accommodating England goalscorers for years. Again, the cross came from Chilwell on the left where he largely did what he pleased.
Sterling, Mason Mount, John Stones and James all departed at half-time by which point the San Marino manager Franco Varrella had still not removed his face mask. Southgate resisted any temptation to send on Kane before the end and instead the last two goals came from Calvert-Lewin and then his replacement Watkins. Lingard made the first and Phil Foden, a second-half substitute, made the second for Watkins. There should have been many more but it was simpler to ease off as San Marino reached exhaustion and dropped ever deeper.
There were more fine stops from Benedettini who launched himself at a Ward-Prowse free-kick and turned it onto the post. By the end the San Marino keeper seemed to be quite enjoying himself. Just five goals was a good outcome for him. It is hard to say what the rest of his team made of it. This is 143 competitive games now for San Marino of which they have failed to win a single one. They are not even permitted to swap shirts now these days. Against Albania on Sunday and then Poland three days later, England can consider their 2022 qualifying campaign as starting in earnest.
Confirmed lineups
England: Pope, James (Trippier 45), Stones (Mings 45), Coady, Chilwell, Ward-Prowse, Phillips, Mount (Bellingham 45), Lingard, Calvert-Lewin (Watkins 63), Sterling (Foden 45).
San Marino: Benedettini, Battistini, Brolli, Rossi, Grandoni (Ceccaroli 55), Hirsch (Mularoni 55), Golinucci (Battistini 71), Lunadei (Giardi 79), Palazzi, Berardi (D’Addario 79), Nanni
Referee: Kirill Levnikov
