International Friendlies: England Wins On Saturday

Jermaine Defoe could have wrapped things up as the game marched toward injury time, but his shot clattered off the woodwork with 82 minutes on the clock. Gillet had previously clipped Hart’s post with a wonderful try from outside the box.

All in all, a good enough performance to beat Belgium. Is that going to be enough at the Euros? Probably not.

Game Date/Time: Saturday, 12:15 p.m. ET, 6:15 p.m. local

Venue: Wembley Stadium, London, England

Italy. Home of Catenaccio, of defensive football, of a system so boring you fall asleep waiting for the ball to advance down the field. This is the narrative, my friends -- it is only your own eyes that deceive you. The real azzurri are defensively perfect. And this will be what commentators, at least those speaking English, will repeat again and again as Euro 2012 plays out.

And then the inevitable goal. Alan Dzagoev sent the ball in from the right side. Roman Shirokov touched it on to Aleksander Kerzhakov, who turned to see the complete absence of azzurri defenders standing in his way. While Italia supporters might say that Saint Gigi would have managed to stop the ball, there was nothing De Sanctis could do as the shot nestled into the far corner.

The Rennes midfielder, whom a number of clubs are eyeing this summer, went down after a kick from Dušan Tadić and limped off the pitch, and although he returned to the bench, Laurent Blanc and company will be sweating on the results of a scan. Without M’Vila present, France could be in real trouble against their more adventurous opposition in Euro 2012.

As a warm-up for Euro 2012, Germany played Israel in a friendly on Thursday. There was probably some significance behind this match that goes behind the narrow constraints of football and preparation for Euro 2012, but that does not change the fact that this match did very little to help Germany prepare for the tournament. Israel did not do much attacking at all, and Germany comfortably coasted to a 2-0 win.

The Germans weren’t great with their finishing and Ariel Harush had a solid game in goal for Israel. They spent enough time in the general vicinity of the Israel penalty area to score a dozen times over, but didn’t look terribly interested in doing so for a lot of the game.

Even if Diarra has avoided a serious injury, it would be very surprising if he did not suffer a badly sprained ankle, at the very least. That wouldn’t stop him from starting preseason on time for Rennes or securing a big-money transfer, but it would be a serious enough injury that Laurent Blanc would need to consider calling up a replacement for Euro 2012. While no one has a diagnosis yet, it’ll take a miracle for M’Vila to return to Les Bleus in the short term.

M’Vila is currently one of two starters in the center of midfield, alongside Yohan Cabaye. Diarra, the man who replaced him in the match against Serbia, would likely take over the starting role. He’s a tactical like-for-like replacement, but doesn’t have nearly the athletic ability or technical quality of M’Vila. With all due respect to Diarra, the loss of M’Vila will be a massive blow for France.

Mexico is without a number of their best young talents, as they play in a separate Under-23 tournament in preparation for the Olympics. This means that a number of fringe players in the 23-to-25-year-old age range are getting chances at playing time with El Tri. Jesus Molina, Edgar Andrade, Jesus Zavala, Hugo Ayala and Severo Meza fall into this category. Meza, Andrade and Zavala all started against Wales. Meza put in a good showing at right back, and might have an opportunity to take over that spot full time if he can put in another good performance.

Game Date/Time: Thursday, 9 p.m. ET

If you were looking for excitement, you came to entirely the wrong place. Although the woodwork was rattled three times during Russia’s visit to Lithuania, the match ended 0-0 with the play about as exciting as the scoreline suggests.

We did nearly get one of the all-time great own goals in the first half, when Lithuanian centre back Arunas Klimavicius pulled off a looping volley that goalkeeper Ernestas Setkus was forced to tip onto the bar. But aside from that and a neat volley from the edge of the box from Lithuania’s Valdemar Borovskij that beat Russian keeper Igor Akinfeev but not his crossbar, there was precious little going on.

Just before the stroke of halftime, Hummels redeemed himself a bit with a great headed goal, off the crossbar and over the line on a free kick by Mesut Özil. This seemed like the kind of thing that was going to shift momentum in the game and carry Germany to a positive second half performance. This did not happen.

Derdiyok was credited with a 50th minute goal, but Admir Mehmedi is likely to be given the credit upon review. Barnetta set the goal up again, providing a ball into the box for Derdiyok to win in the air and head towards goal before Mehmedi applied the final touch.

A few minutes later a lovely through ball from Santi Carzola picked out Adrian and the forward took a very suspicious looking tumble in the box under close attention from Ivanovic. The referee bought the dive, however, and Carzola blasted the resultant spot kick down the middle to make it 2-0, Damir Kahriman diving to his right. Some flares greeted that second goal, which wasn’t very friendly, but any unrest soon died down. As did the game.

McGeady created the game’s only goal in the 78th minute with a great cross from the right flank to the back post. Substitute striker Shane Long made a great run to lose his man and nodded it past Begovic to give Ireland the goal that they should have claimed much earlier in the game. They almost doubled their lead five minutes later through another substitute striker, Jonathan Walters, but Begovic made a miraculous near-post save, barely getting his hand to the ball while it was right on the goal line.