The euphoria of the British press after the first victories of the Steve McLaren team was replaced by bewilderment after the matches with Macedonia - a minimal away victory and a home draw. The upcoming match with the Croats, who are not losing at home in the qualifiers, promised to be the first serious test for the new head coach. And Maclaren - either under pressure from the press, or in connection with the disqualification of Stephen Gerrard - decided on an experiment.
In Zagreb, England tested the 3-5-2 scheme, where Gary Neville and Ashley Cole played the role of extreme midfielders, and Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Jamie Carragher made the defensive trio from right to left. The arrangement was intriguing: the “eyebrows” were to create a numerical superiority in the center of the field, but if necessary they could “sit down” on the defensive. In the midfield, Lampard was assisted by Carrick and Parker, the attacking duo was Crouch and Rooney.
Initially, the raids of Neville and Cole promised an interesting development of events. In the center, the English oporniks initially led the Croatian techies Kranjčar and Modrić. But the trouble came to the McLaren team from where they did not wait - in turn all three central defenders made a mistake. At first, Carragher, in whose life there was clearly not enough meetings with the left flank, allowed Eduardo Da Silva to push himself and knead Robinson with a tight blow. Then Ferdinand fouls three times in a row and waited for a yellow card. And soon Terry stupidly lost the ball in midfield, which resulted in Parker's jump into Da Silva's legs and a dangerous free kick performed by Rapaich. However, the British did not immediately notice the fire that broke out in the rear - the first twenty minutes they were attracted by the idea of an attack. Rooney was active, although his attempts to pick up rebounds from Crouch and the beautiful long wall with Lampard did not end even with a shot on target. And the last 15 minutes of the first half went in the attacks of the Croats - Kranjčar beat three times.
The first dangerous blow after the break was dealt by Petrich - Rapaich’s delivery from the penalty box found the striker’s head five meters from the box, but Robinson coped with the strike. And it soon became clear that the Tottenham goalkeeper should be scored from a slightly greater distance. After the canopy, Nico Kovacs reached the goal of the parachute strike of Da Silva, which Terry forgot about, who for some reason took care of his teammate Cole. The British had no reaction to the goal. Only once the forwards tried to realize McLaren’s dream of how a baby and a horse should interact: Crouch faithfully executed a discount, but Rooney didn’t get above the gate.
The game suddenly calmed down. The Croats had reasons for this: the advantage in the score and confident control over the ball allowed them to relax. But what did the British expect? Probably a successful counterattack. At least no one could have predicted the circumstances that led to the second goal. Gary Neville pulled back to Robinson, the ball bounced on a bump on the corner of the goalkeeper and the ball rolled into the goal, whisking under the goalkeeper’s foot. Robinson did not even begin to swear, having trampled a little unfortunate pothole and having waved a leg in despair. At that moment, as on purpose, the smirk of comedian Sasha Baron Cohen (aka Borat Sagdyev, aka Ali Ji) appeared on billboards.
However, only Slaven Bilich was entitled to laugh. Maclaren needed to correct the situation. And he, perhaps, decided on the most unjustified step: he made a triple substitution, but for some reason saved the not working game scheme, which had to be changed immediately after the first goal. For the remaining 15 minutes until the end of the match, the British managed to organize only the only shot for the match on target of the Croatian goal - in the first added minute, Rooney shot from the bottom from 30 meters.
Perhaps the main mistake of McLaren is that he turned the away match against the strongest opponent in the group into an experiment, while the team had to play extremely strictly. But the England team lost not only tactically, but also in all game components. This proves the strength of the Croats, with whom the Russian team seems to have to perceive a home draw as luck.