Belarus vs England World Cup Qualifier: Preview, Live Score
To know the final score of the match, visit this entry:
Final Score of Belarus vs England 15 October 2008 Match
England is going to take on Belarus tomorrow (15 September 2008) away at Minsk. The match will take place at the Dinamo Stadium in Minsk. With three successive victories, England is now leading the point table of Group 6 with maximum 9 points. England is looking to get off to their best ever start to a world cup qualifying campaign with four wins out of four. This will definitely come as a confidence booster for England players as well as new coach Fabio Capello. Belarus, on the other hand, is now at the 4th place in the group table with 3 points from 2 matches. Belarus seems to emerge as a new giant killer in Europe. The former Soviet country has been showing good progress in football lately. Belarus defeated Holland last year in Euro 2008 qualifying round. So, they will be looking to make another upset at home tomorrow.
Match: Belarus vs England, Group 6, World Cup 2010 Qualifying
Date: 15 October 2008, Wednesday
Venue: Dinamo Stadium, Minsk, Belarus
Kick off: 19:30 BST (British Standard Time)
Live TV: Setanta Sports, ITV (Highlights only)
Live Radio: BBC Radio Five Live
England started their world cup qualifying campaign with a laborious 2-0 victory over Andorra at Barcelona. That victory did not impress the English fans, but England thrashed Croatia with a 4-1 victory in the next match in an emphatic way. Theo Walcott turned to be a national hero after his hat trick against Croatia. Then last weekend, England defeated Kazakhstan 5-1 at home. However, England players were booed off by the English fans at the Wembley stadium during half time as England failed to score in the first half against Kazakhstan. In fact, England needed 52 minutes to score their fist goal in the match. Wayne Rooney scored twice in the match and played excellently well in the second half.
Belarus is not a football power in world football. In fact, they did not qualify for any world cup tournament so far. However, they have showed a steady progress over the last few years both at international as well as club level. Belarus, currently 59th in FIFA ranking, saw their highest FIFA ranking of 57th in June this year. I have already mentioned Belarus’ victory over Netherlands during Euro 2008 world cup qualifying round. Belarus club BATE Borisov has become the first Belarus club who made it to the group stage of UEFA Champions League 2008-2009 and held Italian club Juventus 2-2 at home recently. So, Belarus has improved a lot in football over the last few years.
Belarus started their world cup 2010 qualifying campaign with a 1-0 defeat away at Ukraine, but they managed to pull off a 3-1 victory over Andorra in the next match. Now, they are going to face England at home on Wednesday. There is no doubt, Belarus will look to win points from the match against England. Even a draw against England will be considered as a good performance by the Belarus fans.
Belarus has some quality players but they might miss the service of their star captain Alexander Hleb due to his foot injury. Helb thinks that he is fit enough to take part in the match, even though his club Barcelona does not want him to play the match. Former Arsenal man Helb thinks Belarus can defeat England if he plays in the match and he has asked his team mates not to give any space to England.
Telegraph reported:
“If I play, we are going to win, if not it’ll be a draw,” he said. “We can win only if we move fast enough. In each move our players must support each other.
“We shouldn’t give England any space. There must not be any holes in our defence. We should get to the ball ahead of them.”
Belarus has some excellent players who will be vital in the match against England. There are a number of players who play in domestic league in Russia. In defense, Belarus has players like Sergei Omelyanchuk, Egor Filipenko who can make the task hard for the opposition strikers, building a flawless defense. However, I think, England has to face tough challenge in the midfield as Belarus has a very good midfield line up. Aside from Alexander Hleb, there are some other players like Aliaksandr Kulchiy, Vladimir Korytko and Oleg Strakhanovich who have experience as well as talent to take the control of the midfield.
Belarus striker Vitali Bulyga has already warned England not of not being complacent against Belarus. He also thinks that Wayne Rooney is not unbeatable and Belarus is going to use the weakness of Rooney to stop him from playing at his prime. They also have striker FC Parma striker Vitali Kutuzov and talented forward Vyacheslav Hleb in their squad.
England manager Fabio Capello has a number of injury problems in his defensive line up. Captain John Terry will remain sidelined as the Chelsea defender could not recover from his back injury in time to catch the trip to Belarus. In his absence, West Ham United central defender Matthew Upson is expected to continue his job at the heart of the England defense, pairing up with stand-in captain Rio Ferdinand.
However, Capello has another injury woe to contend with. Left back Ashley Cole picked up with a hamstring injury during the 5-1 victory over Kazakhstan. So, he will also miss the match against Belarus. Wes Brown is most likely to replace him in the starting line up. However, West Ham United goal keeper Robert Green has pulled himself out of the England squad ahead of the away match at Minsk in Belarus due to knee problem. That means, England has to visit Belarus with only two goal keeping options in Portsmouth keeper David James and Scott Carson from West Brom. It is true that Green was not even in the substitute bench against Kazakhstan, but his absence can not good news for the three lions ahead of a tricky fixture in Belarus.
Fabio Capello will face problem in forming his midfield line up against Belarus. He has to decide if he plays Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Gareth Barry together in the starting line up or not. All these three are best at central defense position. Capello must not do the same mistake that he did against Kazakhstan by playing England in a 4-3-3 formation, in stead of England’s tradition formation of 4-2-2. Capello did it to accommodate all these three influential central midfielders together in the starting line up. As a result, England failed to score any goal against Kazakhstan in the first half while playing in a 4-3-3 formation. During the first half, Capello employed Wayne Rooney in the left flank, while Theo Walcott playing in the right flank and Emile Heskey playing as the lone striker.
Soon after Capello restored England to its traditional 4-2-2 formation, England did not take much time to click in the second half. They scored five goals in the second half with Wayne Rooney scoring two goals after going back to forward position where he suits best. So, I think, Capello will not feature 4-3-3 formation against Belarus.
Now, if Fabio Capello wants to feature Barry, Gerrard and Lampard all in the starting line up together, then he might have to employ Steven Gerrard in the left flank, in stead of Shaun Wright Phillips, and Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry together in the central midfield with Theo Walcott continuing his job in the right wing.
Wayne Rooney and Emile Heskey have showed that they can form a formidable partnership in England’s attacking line up. So, Fabio Capello may not bring any change in the attacking line up against Belarus.
There is no doubt, Alexander Hleb will be very crucial for Belarus, if he finally plays in the match. Until last season, he was in Arsenal and he knows very well about English football. Moreover, he knows very well about his Arsenal teammate Theo Walcott who could be a major threat for Belarus, though his performance was not satisfactory against Kazakhstan. Moreover, Hleb’s presence can inspire his teammates too. So, I think, his participation in the match is very important for Belarus.
Online Live Score and Updates
Setanta Sports will telecast the match live, but to watch the match live you have to subscribe to Setanta Sports for a certain amount. However, you can watch the highlights of the match on ITV television channel. Still, if you can not manage to stick to your television channel due to shot of time, you can go through the following websites from where you can get the online live score and updates of the match:
Live Score
Live Football Scores
Goal.com
Footie Scorez
England is favorite against Belarus on pen and paper. However, I guess, England is going to face a hard challenge from Belarus. The home fans will inspire the Belarus players to come out with full of confident. To be honest, I will not be surprised if Belarus can share points with England. I predict a hard-fought affair on Wednesday in Minsk, Belarus.
