The Moon of Liberty

Last night the real England football team finally came out of the ashes of a series of never ending miserable performances. Since the failure of the last World cup, England have underachieved again and again despite having starts who consistantly shine on the European Chmapions League stage for their clubs, the likes of Stephen Gerrard, John Terry, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney,who play like world beaters at time in European games, have never really done it for England.

Last night something different happened. They went away to Zagreb to play Croatia, a team considered one of the best teams in Europe, recent scapls included Germany at the recent European Championships, they also has a 35 game unbeaten record at home, including a comprehensive 2-0 victory over England almost two years ago.

So would Englands flopsfail yet again against a very good side? No, England played their best game since a 3-2 win over Argentina in a warm up game in the run up to the alst World Cup in 2006. They tore Croatia apart in every department, the players played like they can for their clubs and demolished Croatia by a huge 4-1 scoreline.

Rooney also getting on the scoresheet was also good, as he had not scored for a while. A fine performance as well as result should also help confidence going into future games, however, the star of the show last night was Arsenal's young starlet Theo Walcott. A brilliant hat-trick, taring Croatia apart with his pace and precision, which leads you wonder wonder may this have happened if it was not for one other overlooked man.

That man is the much maligned for England Manager, Sven Goran Eriksson. In the 2006 World cup Eriksson caused a storm when he surpisingly announced the very same Theo Walcott into his World Cup squad. Then Theo was only 18 and had only played a small number of first team games. The press lined up to attack Eriksson's decision, especially as he had no intention of playing Walcott, at that point he was not ready. When the England team failed to get passed Portugal in the quarter final, the decision to take Walcott was again and again attacked as evidence that Eriksson was a poor mananger who had not got clue what he was doing.

Of course, maybe he did know what he was doing. In seeing the potential in Walcott, take him to a World Cup, allow him to get used to the squad elecment, train with the first team, create an environment where a young man who Eriksson obviously was clear had a huge future with England, could get used to the realities of what being an England squad memeber entailed, was all about at every level.

This of course was a huge sacrifice, as Eriksson surely knew he would not be manager after that World Cup, but he was willing to bring through a young man for the future he would not be a part of. Without going to that World Cup last night may never have happened. It would still be being discussed if Walcott was ready to perform, he may have only been on the fringes of the squad, and last night may have been a very different story.

We will of course have no retractions from anyone about how wrong they were to attack Eriksson for his decision, It will be all Walcott, Capello ect. But in hailing those, raise a glass to Sven, proven absolutely right in his judgement about Walcott, and willing to risk his own short term position for the long term good of a young player with potential, and the rest of the England team.