England 2 (Owen 43, Fowler 88)    Albania 0                                    World Cup football home page
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This World Cup qualifying game took place on 5 September 2001 at the St James Park ground in Newcastle. Sven Goran Eriksson chose the same team that started against Germany in the 5-1 win just four days before.
 
The England team was:
 
                                                              Seaman
 
  G Neville                       Ferdinand                               Campbell                  Ashley Cole
                                                                                             
 
  Beckham                       Gerrard                                  Scholes                       Barmby
                                       (Carragher 83)                                                       (McManaman 64)
 
 
                                       Owen                                Heskey                          
                                                                                (Fowler 55)
 
The Albanian starting team was Strakosha, Dede, Cipi, Xhumba, Fakaj, Hasi, Murati, Bellai, Bata, Rraklli, Bogdani
 

England started by dominating the game and after 5 minutes Owen broke free -  it looked like he was brought down by the Albanian keeper, Strakosha, but no penalty was given. Nick Barmby then headed wide before crossing for Heskey a couple of minutes later - Heskey, however, was denied by the goalkeeper who cleared from just in front of him.

England were lucky when Murati could have had a penalty when he fell in the box under challenge from Ashley Cole.

Still in the first half Strakosha made another excellent save from a Beckham free kick but he could do nothing about Michael Owen's strike to make it 1-0 to England two minutes before half time. Scholes looped the ball over the Albanian defence from midfield, Owen ran onto it breaking the offside trap and volleyed the ball past the keeper to score.
 

                                                           


Robbie Fowler came on for Emile Heskey after 55 minutes and he soon received the ball from a mishit attempt on goal from Owen - however from eight yards and unchallenged he hit the ball too close to the Albanian goalkeeper. With just over 10 minutes of the game left, Seaman had to make a very good save to his left to stop a Murati strike from distance going in at the top corner. Beckham then had a similar effort for England but Strakosha saved well too.

After 88 minues, Fowler picked the ball up in midfield, then went past a couple of players on his way to goal - from just inside the penalty area he chipped the goalkeeper as he went to ground outside his six yard box - the ball went in the net to make it 2-0 to England - the win was secure.

England now go top of their World Cup 2002 qualifying group with just one home match against Greece left to play.


Who played well:  Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and David Seaman stood out as having good games. Considering the England players had put so much effort into the Germany game a few days earlier, none of them could be criticised.
 

Click here to see the full review of England's World Cup 2002 qualification group 9 (including the final table).  

Click here to see all England's results since Euro 96