England and France, who meet in their opening Euro 2012 Group D match in Donetsk, Ukraine, today, have jousted in soccer duels for 90 years, but if England had by far the better of the earliest exchanges — they won the first six encounters, all on French soil, comfortably — it is Gallic fans who have enjoyed more recent fare — not least a smash-and-grab group success at Euro 2004.
England won the first game 4-1 in 1923 and it was not until eight years later that France got off the mark.
They would also hand Sir Alf Ramsey’s Three Lions a 5-2 defeat in a Euro 64 qualifier — but Ramsey would have his revenge during the victorious 1966 World Cup campaign, where two Roger Hunt goals — final hat-trick star Geoff Hurst was kept in reserve that day — secured top spot in the group, with France eliminated.
Photo: Reuters
The next time the pair met in competition, in 1982, England again took the bragging rights as Bryan Robson scored the then-fastest goal in the history of World Cup finals, netting after only 27 seconds in a 3-1 group win — though both sides made it though the group phase.
France hoped they would have the last laugh as Germany eliminated England in the second phase, but Germany then squeezed them out on penalties in the semi-finals.
If Robson’s early birds got the worm, the boot was on the other foot at Euro 2004 when Frank Lampard looked to have secured an opening group stage win with a first-half goal. In stoppage-time, the mercurial Zinedine Zidane lashed home a free-kick and then still had time to net a penalty — though the tension even got to him as he was sick on the pitch before taking it — after Steven Gerrard’s misplaced pass saw Thierry Henry hare through, only to be upended by England goalkeeper David James.
A November 2010 friendly win for France at Wembley in the neighbors’ last meeting saw both sides striving for a return to form after calamitous World Cup showings in South Africa.
Since that match, England have swapped the stern, Italian-flavored approach of Fabio Capello for the well-traveled Roy Hodgson — rather than ebullient tabloid newspaper favorite Harry Redknapp.
Meanwhile, France have emerged solidly from their 2010 nightmare, rising to 14th in the UEFA rankings under Laurent Blanc, who has overseen a resurgence in their fortunes on the back of an unbeaten run of 21 games, which includes [friendly] wins over Brazil, Germany — and that win in England.
With a third of the France squad plying their trade in the English Premier League — that trend going back to the 1990s arrival of Eric Cantona at Leeds United, then Manchester United, but most particularly to the start of the reign of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal — the two nations know each other inside out.
Blanc says even under a new coach and without several established faces, he knows exactly what to expect — but denies that this is an advantage.
“It’s all well and good to say they’re weakened, but what concerns me is that England will play in a certain manner, based on their qualities and their philosophy,” Blanc said. “They’ll give everything because when the French are against the English, it raises the stakes. We’ll have to be strong. It will be difficult.”
Chelsea’s Florent Malouda echoed that.
“England will be ready and competitive. They won’t hide — that’s not the English culture,” he said.
Newcastle United’s Yohan Cabaye also expects “a tough battle, as we know how the English play — especially against France.”
“Even if they are missing a few players, they are still a great team and it will take a great France team to beat them,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier