Translated material
London "summit"
Teams from all over the world prefer to meet in England
For one day, the capital of England turned into one huge football ground. On Tuesday, four test matches took place in London. The Brentford club's Griffin Park stadium hosted the national teams of Nigeria and Ghana, Australia and Denmark played at the home arena of Queens Park Rangers, Loftus Road, and the Cravane Cottage field, where Fulham usually plays, was tested by national team players Greece and South Korea. And the central match of the day took place at the ultra-modern Emirates Stadium. There, the teams of Portugal and Brazil sorted things out.Not only Guus Hiddink had a chance to meet his compatriots this week. The coach of the Portuguese national team, Brazilian Luiz Felipe Scolari, also had to play against his own. And not only play, but also win. The European vice-champions defeated the Brazilian team - 2:0. Both goals were scored in the last minutes of the match.
Pentacampeon coach Carlos Dunga continues to experiment with the composition. True, this time there was no place for any CSKA representative in his team. Of the Brazilian army players, only Dudu was invited to the national team. But even that did not find a place in the lineup for the match with Portugal. Perhaps, when choosing the squad, Dunga consulted with Paulo Paixao - CSKA's physical training coach is also on the coaching staff of the Brazilian national team.
One way or another, Dunga decided to test new combinations in attack. From the first minutes Fred, Rafael Sobis, Kaka and Elano appeared on the field. However, all of them did not act in the best way, and defender Lucio’s hit to the crossbar turned out to be almost the only truly dangerous moment at the goal of the Portuguese national team. The appearance of Adriano in the second half did not revive the Brazilians' game. But Scolari’s team, having managed to cope with the opponent’s attacks, launched an offensive towards the end of the match and achieved success twice. Both goals were somewhat similar: a pass along the flank, a pass into the center of the penalty area, from where the ball was sent into the goal with a half-volley. Simao Sabrosa scored in the first moment, and Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho scored in the second.
“As a normal coach, I have to take all the blame,” said Dunga, who endured his worst match as head coach of the Brazilian national team. - We should have played less on the flanks, because we allowed the Portuguese to organize counterattacks in the center. But this will be a good lesson for us. It's better to make mistakes now than later at the World Cup in South Africa and I'm sure this team has good potential."
Even more beautiful goals were scored at Loftus Road, where Denmark beat Australia 3:1. Three of the four goals of this meeting flew into the “nines”, and another one - during a long combination, which was completed by the main hero of the match, Thomasson, who scored a double.
Meanwhile, the Russian youth team in Groningen hopelessly lost to their peers from Holland - 0:3. In theory, the Russian team, which did not make it to the 2007 European Youth Championship, was supposed to play a new squad for the next qualifying round. However, the Dutch asked to bring older players to the sparring, and the Spartak goalkeeper Khomich and two army players Gorelov and Grigoriev appeared in the Russian national team.
However, this did not save the guests from defeat. Easily overcoming the opponent's defensive formations, the Dutch youth caught the Russians twice in the first half with a slow artificial offside, and Bakkal scored a double by the 27th minute. Rigters scored the third goal in the middle of the second half, putting the Russian defense in a bad light. First, the Dutchman beat two defenders, but his shot was parried by Khomich, by which time Rigters, who had fallen on the lawn, managed to take the ball away from the same defenders, get up, beat them one more time and then hit the goal.
Results of friendly matches. Holland (youth) - Russia (youth) - 3:0. Brazil - Portugal - 0:2, Mali - Lithuania - 3:1, Greece - Korea - 0:1, Bulgaria - Latvia - 2:0, Cyprus - Hungary - 2:1, Nigeria - Ghana - 1:4, Northern Ireland - Wales - 0:0, Australia - Denmark - 1:3.