Preview: England host Andorra in World Cup qualifier
It should be a comfortable evening for England at Villa Park against Andorra, despite recent grumbles.
By Ian King
Recent form
It’s been three months since England last played and things didn’t go too well that time, with Senegal becoming the first African team to ever win at Wembley, and by a comfortable 3-1 margin. But England’s record in World Cup qualifiers is incredible. They last lost one almost 16 years ago, to Ukraine in October 2009.
In the game before that, England only beat Andorra 1-0 in Barcelona, with Harry Kane scoring the only goal. Andorra’s blanket defence almost smothered England that afternoon. Andorra lost their next game, a qualifier in this group, 3-0 to Serbia. Their last win came in October 2024, 2-0 against San Marino. This match marked the last time they scored, as well.
History
England have won all seven of the meetings between these two teams, as we’d expect, and their next narrowest margin of victory was a 2-0 away win, exactly 17 years earlier. Andorra have never scored against England, so hitting the net would be an achievement for them.
Key Players
If anything, this is the sort of match when we might expect Thomas Tuchel to make some changes and give some uncapped players a chance, but Tuchel has indicated that he intends to start a strong team for this match.
As such, it’s worth dwelling upon Harry Kane, who will pick up his 108th cap. This will tie him with Bobby Moore, who once held the record, but who has since been eclipsed by David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, and Peter Shilton. Kane is now 17 appearances short of Shilton’s record 125 caps, and he’s 32 years old. The chase is on.
Kane is also 20 goals clear as England’s record scorer, and none of the others in the all-time top ten on that list are currently playing. In 10th place is Frank Lampard on 29, to give you some idea of how long it’ll be before that record is broken.
The man worth watching for Andorra is Marc Pujol. Now the ripe old age of 43, Puyol’s senior career began a quarter of a century ago, a full three years before Jude Bellingham was born. He’s got 122 caps for Andorra, and he also scored their last goal; their second, in that 2-0 win against San Marino.
He currently plays his club football in the Andorran top flight, the Primera Divisió, for Atlètic d’Escaldes, who finished runners-up in that league last season and have already been knocked out of this year’s Europa Conference League qualifiers.
Team News
Spurs left-back Djed Spence and Nottingham Forest midfielder Elliot Anderson both earn their first call-ups for England (we discussed what role the latter may play – here), but there has been one withdrawal, with Adam Wharton of Crystal Palace reportedly now out for three weeks with an adductor injury. Andorra are not believed to have any significant injuries.
Prediction
There are one or two concerns about this England team, as shown up by Senegal in their last match as well as their last meeting with Andorra. And while it’s fair to say that team selection has everything to do with preparing for next summer’s finals, they’re nowhere near qualified yet, and they need to be in the right frame of mind for their next – and far more difficult – fixture, away to Serbia.
Andorra will throw that blanket down again and challenge England not to be smothered by it. They nearly managed it last time, with only one goal between the teams, and it’s a sign of how much that stung, that Thomas Tuchel has promised a strong team for this one. But I can only go on the evidence of my own eyes, and England didn’t deserve much better than that narrow 1-0 win in June. 3-0 this time, and the grumbling to continue to Belgrade on Tuesday night.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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