Andorra vs England result: Jack Grealish scores first international goal in routine Three Lions win

Andorra 0-5 England: As routine as expected thanks to goals from Chilwell, Saka, Abraham, Ward-Prowse and Grealish

Miguel Delaney
Chief Football Writer
Sunday 10 October 2021 01:36 BST
Comments
Jack Grealish takes aim during the largely pointless game
Jack Grealish takes aim during the largely pointless game (Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A step closer to Qatar, without having to break into a sprint.

On an artificial pitch, England played out another win that could barely be called a real football match.

The only significance of this 5-0 win away to Andorra was the first international goals for Ben Chilwell and Jack Grealish, who will at least have something to remember from a match most people will immediately forget.

Perhaps the most accurate description of this game was that it was mostly a pleasant stroll through Pyrenean hills for the superb Phil Foden.

The playmaker both decorated the game and decided it, since it was his supreme passes that set up the first two goals that settled this game.

“Deciding it" is of course a relative term in this sense, since it was virtually inevitable that a team as good as England were going to score against a side as poor as Andorra. Such matches will doubtless prompt another round of discussion over whether nations of such size should be allowed compete at this level, or go through some kind of qualifying.

While football should remain as democratic as possible, that doesn’t preclude the reorganisation of qualifying campaigns. Such suggestions are among the better parts of Fifa’s otherwise self-serving and illogical plan for a biennial World Cup.

A fair argument could be made that the current qualifying campaigns come from a different era, when there wasn’t such a proliferation of European countries, and they could do with modernisation; something to make more of the games more interesting.

At the same time, one of the rare benefits of a game like this is that it gives a playmaker like Foden a blank canvas. That’s almost a literal description, at least in terms of the amount of space around him. He was left with metres around him to pick out divine pass after divine pass.

For England’s first goal – and Chilwell’s first international goal – it was Jadon Sancho who got the assist, but it was really all about Foden’s pass. He picked out Sancho, who had made the same run as Chilwell, to eventually pull it back for the full-back.

A similar searching ball for the second found Bukayo Saka, who hammered the ball into the roof of the net.

Again, it was like the players just had the uncluttered stage to try things. The Andorran box had been almost left vacant for the third goal. Sancho swept in an inviting ball, and Tammy Abraham – with the goalkeeper stuck to his line – just prodded the ball in from so close.

By the time England had two, and there was no danger of any kind of battle to get past, the players were just trying things and experimenting.

Grealish was looking to offer even more decoration than Foden.

Such moments inevitably brought fouls, and eventually a penalty for England. While Josep Gomes gave himself a moment to remember by saving James Ward-Prowse’s penalty, the pity was that it went straight back to the midfielder to finish. That was his second goal for England, and Grealish soon got his first. He just raced away and drove home.

The only regret for England by then was that more players didn’t add to the scoring.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in