Croatia v England - live!

Let's not faff around, here's the England team: James, Brown, Terry, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Walcott, Lampard, Barry, Joe Cole, Rooney, Heskey.Subs: Robinson, Johnson, Beckham, Downing, Defoe, Upson, Jenas.

Let's not faff around, here's the England team: James, Brown, Terry, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Walcott, Lampard, Barry, Joe Cole, Rooney, Heskey.Subs: Robinson, Johnson, Beckham, Downing, Defoe, Upson, Jenas.

Let's not faff around, here's the England team: James, Brown, Terry, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Walcott, Lampard, Barry, Joe Cole, Rooney, Heskey.Subs: Robinson, Johnson, Beckham, Downing, Defoe, Upson, Jenas.

And this is what the hosts Croatia look like: Pletikosa, Simunic, Robert Kovac, Corluka, Pranjic, Rakitic, Petric, Nico Kovac, Srna, Modric, Olic.Subs: Runje, Krizanac, Mandzukic, Pokrivac, Knezevic, Leko, Klasnic.

You may have noticed our MBM tools are jiggered. So sue us!*

* Please do not sue us

Anyway, the teams are coming out. Whistles greet God Save Our Queen. It makes the dirge much, much more interesting to listen to. Then the Croat number, and it's quite pumped full of its own self-importance. Which is kind of the point of anthems, I guess. Speaking of national arrogance, here's Hrvoje from Zagreb: "In last two days I've learned to admire English folk more than ever before. The Croatian media have gone berserk with euphoriaand arrogance. Unbeaten on home turf, beaten only once in WC qualifiers, Becks is old, Rooney not in the mood, we've improved our game since Euro (where we didn't triumph only by accident), blahblahblah... So I wonder, how did You in England manage to survive this atmosphere of absolute superiority over, well, pretty much any team on Earth for more than a century of international football?" Absolute superiority? Absolute superiora ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho oh dear me. There's an idea. Basically what the English did is refuse to play anyone foreign for nearly 100 years, then have 13 goals put past them by Hungary, then fluke a very boring and defensive World Cup, then strut about in an increasingly deluded manner for the best part of 40 years. And then Steve McClaren. Oh you've got it all to come.

And we're off! England take possession of the ball and almost immediately lose it. Heskey falls over. I'm spotting trends before they even happen.

3 min: Modric tears down the centre of the pitch twice, first nearly releasing Olic in the centre, then feeding Srna down the right; Terry is forced to hack clear, but can only send the ball to Pranjic, who pelts a shot on target which James snaffles with ease. This already looks a bit ominous.

4 min: Frank Lampard takes a free kick from 25 yards, but, y'know.

7 min: A good ball from Lampard to Walcott, who diddles down the right and creates a bit of space for himself in the box. Then, with Heskey waiting in the middle, kicks his own heel and falls over. Hey, that's Emile's job! Pletikosa smothers the ball with Heskey sliding in, a challenge which annoys the crowd but nobody else. "Scott, it wouldn't be a MBM, OBO or GBG commentary if there wasn't a comment about the ubiquitous gremlins in the software," notes Rob Tabb. Well, it's part of our ersatz charm. "Is it possible that The Guardian has spent too much money on the new blog software (with greater reach) so that there isn't any left for whatever antiquated Sinclair Spectrum Jet Set Willy bit of software you use? Do you need to use a cassette tape to load it?" Yep. And it's got Novaload. Or was that for the Commodore 64? I can't remember.

9 min: England have been impressive for the last few minutes, enjoying most of the possession and most of the territory. Plenty of ball for Walcott and Lampard; Fabio will be happy with this start. Now let's see if they can build on it. "Is the preposterously over-rated Slaven Bilic out on the pitch celebrating yet?" asks Gary Naylor. "He's usually not inhibited by such technicalities as actually having the match won, as Euro 2008 showed."

12 min: England are allowing Modric far too much room, though. Yet again he's allowed to run towards the England box, yet again it takes a couple of efforts to clear the danger. He wasn't far from releasing Nico Kovac into the area, there; Ferdinand swipes clear.

13 min: The first comedy cut of the evening from David James

• David James (footballer) (born 1970), a Portsmouth and England goalkeeper
• David James, Baron James of Blackheath, a British corporate trouble-shooter, former chairman of the Millennium Dome, and author of the Conservative Party's James Report

, who spills a deep corner from the left under little or no pressure from Nico Kovac, placing the ball right at the feet of Corluka. From a tight angle he takes a couple of swipes but eventually screws the ball wide right. That was a decent chance.

15 min: Ashley Cole is all over the shop at the moment. First Olic robs him on the right-hand touchline and skidaddles into the box, then Corluka takes the ball off his toe in the area to force a corner. Suddenly England are looking very ropey.

18 min: "Has Joe Cole touched the ball yet?" thunders guardian.co.uk/sport's Paul Doyle

For other uses, see Paul Doyle (disambiguation)

Paul R. Doyle is an American politician. Doyle, a Democrat, has been a state senator from Connecticut since 2007.  in the incredulous manner. Right on cue, here's Cole upending Robert Kovac. Oh dear. He's quite lucky to escape a booking. From the free kick Srna is released into acres down the right. He wins a corner, which is wasted. England are doing absolutely nothing at the moment. Here's Justin Kavanagh: "James snaffles with ease, you wrote. I had to look that one up, and noticed that the next word in my dictionary was snafu, which means 'snarled or stalled in confusion. Awry.' What was that you said about spotting trends tonight?"

20 min: Rooney has been equally invisible, but oh look, here he is. Tracking back near his own box to deny the excellent Srna the chance to get in a low cross. Srna has to make do with a corner, which is delivered with not much in the way of wit, so little wit in fact thatn James is able to catch it.

22 min: Simunic tussles with Heskey in the Croatian area as both men try to get near Walcott's right-wing cross. The big forward goes down under the challenge, an arm on his shoulder. The Setanta commentary team are incensed that a penalty hasn't been awarded, which tells you just about all you need to know about whether it was one or not.

25 min: GOAL!!! Croatia 0-1 England! What a finish from Walcott, who hammers one low into the bottom-left corner from the right-hand side of the area. But what amusing capers precede it: Walcott and Heskey are both offside as Rooney attempts to spring Croatia's back line from deep. The flag doesn't go up, though, so Pranjic attempts to clear upfield - but hits the ball off Robert Kovac's back and straight into Walcott's path. Can't take anything away from that finish, though, which was exceptional.

28 min: Almost immediately Walcott is at it again, and without the outstretched

---

outstretched
Adjective  fingers of Pletikosa, that would have been a facsimile goal. Croatia are beginning to panic.

31 min: Slaven Bilic has got the right funk on, down by the touchline. And no wonder, his team are suddenly all over the place. They win a corner off Brown, but may as well not have bothered, so poor was the delivery, sailing straight out of play miles over James's bar. "Please do not bring the age-old Spectrum v Commodore 64 into this match commentary," begs Glenn Ashcroft, who really isn't helping his own cause here. "Keep it football, although the Spectrum was quite clearly superior and the rubber keyboard was years ahead of its time. Look at the iMac's keyboard it's clearly inspired by it."

35 min: This game is suddenly in a bit of a lull, but England won't care. They're doing more than enough to contain Croatia. After a rocky period back there they've really settled down nicely. Srna begins to show his frustration by bowling Ashley Cole to the ground, then railing at the linesman. "Justin Kavanagh seems to have a very coy dictionary," writes Paul Bradley, who has a filthy one. "SNAFU is an acronym, meaning roughly, 'things are in a mess - as usual'. The most commonly accepted rendering is "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. Still quite appropriate for an England match, though."

38 min: Walcott tears right down the centre of the pitch and is upended by Simunic. Play goes on - though Simunic will soon be booked - as the ball frees Rooney down the right. The cross, aimed for Heskey, is utterly dreadful, failing to beat the first man.

40 min: Walcott looks a bit groggy

---

[From grog.]

---

grog  and is taken off for a ride on a golf buggy as a treat. It's not long before he comes back on; what a fuss over nothing.

42 min: Rooney, in the style of an eejit, barges into the back of Srna just outside the box. England are very fortunate that Srna's resulting effort is straight into the wall, for that was a dangerous position alright.

44 min: England look uneasy whenever someone runs straight down the centre of the pitch. Rakatic this time is the man to scoot halfway down the pitch then find himself slidling across the turf on his top teeth. Naughty Theo Walcott. Rakatic gets up and, from 30 yards, skies the ball 40 yards over the bar.

HALF TIME: Croatia 0-1 England. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that for the half. "Your commentary seems to be lacking any mention of Frank Lampard," writes Kyle S. Karinen. Yes, it does, doesn't it.

Showing Off About Stuff dept: "All this talk of ZX Spectrums," begins Steve Carbert, "reminds me of the time I wrote this really advanced basic program modelling the effects of superposed quantum states in a randomly fluctuating Hilbert Space and accidentally saved it on an old Barry Manilow cassette. Or was it the Troggs? But we digress. Can you give me more of a feel for how hostile the crowd is?" Yep, they're quite quiet. Now can you tell me what the hell you are going on about? Fluctuating what? Eh?

I'm a bit worried about Terry Venables. He is exactly the same shade of red as the Setanta studio backdrop.

Hilbert Space explained: "The mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space," William Mager cuts and pastes from Wikipedia, I'll be bound. "It extends themethods of vector algebra from the two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space to infinite-dimensional spaces. In more formalterms, a Hilbert space is an inner product space — an abstract vectorspace in whiTHIS IS FUTILE.

And we're off again! Srna quickly picks up a yellow for raking his studs down Ashley Cole's ankle. This is not going well for Croatia. But very nicely for England. What on earth is going on? "It must be something to do with those devilish experiments taking place under a mountain in Switzerland," decides Greg John. "I think we've shifted over to a parallel universe. England actually played well in the first half. They strung a couple of passes together and scored a goal. It's making me very afraid. It's time to hunker down in a bunker somewhere. Science has unleashed something that the football world is not ready for - an England team that occasionally plays football." Yeah, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

49 min: Simunic blocks Rooney as the latter drops a shoulder and heads towards the Croatian box. That was cynical, and surely deserving of a booking - which would have been Simunic's second, two-thirds of the way to a dismissal according to Graham Poll's Special Book. "I believe the Hilbert Space is the quantum equivalent of the Lampard Space, the void at the centre of England's midfield where a world-class playmaker

---

play  should be found," writes Nathan Smith. "It seems to suck all other talent into it's orbit, creating a gigantic maelstrom of uselessness." Right on cue, Lampard hits a weak free kick goalwards - though Pletikosa makes a meal of gathering it.

51 min: RED CARD!!! Robert Kovac leads with his arm and elbows Joe Cole in the head. Cole takes a couple of steps, notes the blood streaming out of the hole in his head, then collapses. The referee has no hesitation in showing Kovac a straight red. Cole looks none too clever, he's probably going to be replaced.

55 min: Jermaine Jenas comes on for Cole, who has head knack and looks even redder than Terry Venables. Croatia rearrange their back line by replacing Petric, who has done bugger all, with Knezevic.

58 min: WHAT A GOAL!!! Croatia 0-2 England. With his back to goal on the edge of the area, Heskey lays a little ball off to Rooney, who slides an immediate pass wide right to Walcott, who is all on his own in the area. Just like the first goal, he slams a shot across Pletikosa and into the bottom-left corner. Absolutely wonderful football.

60 min: Heskey is booked for a late challenge on Nico Kovac. The crowd bay for a red, but come off it. Meanwhile Peter Badcock thinks Steve Carbert is talking "a load of nonsense. He knows he wrote the same basic program as everyone else that owned a Spectrum:10 "Steve is cool"20 Goto 10Who's he think he's kidding?" Don't you need a PRINT in there somewhere? And what about RUN? I'm assuming you never progressed to Machine Code.

62 min: According to Setanta's touchline reporter, Joe Cole has a big gash on his head, with blood coming out of it. This is news?

63 min: WAYNE ROONEY FINALLY SCORES ANOTHER GOAL FOR ENGLAND!!! Croatia 0-3 England. This is over now. Jenas skates down the left wing, cuts into the area, then from the byline pulls the ball back to Rooney, standing on the spot. One swing of a leg later, the ball is clubbed into the net. England, so utterly abject on Saturday night, now look like world-beaters. Nobody expected this. Especially Slaven Bilic, who might now wish he'd kept a lid on the pre-match comments.

68 min: Croatia look utterly stunned. England are swaggering around in a joyous fashion. "Can I be the first to jingoistically predict that England will definitely win the 2010 World Cup now?" asks Scott Dustan. Someone's got to set the entire country up for another very predictable fall, Scott, it may as well be you as anyone else.

71 min: Barry chips a ball down the left wing for Ashley Cole. Instead of crossing, Cole attempts a preposterous Marco van Basten style hoof from a very tight angle. Oh dear. Throw in. Meanwhile on 51 minutes I reported that "Cole looks none too clever". "That was never in question, was it?" asks Mac Millings.

73 min: Mandzukic comes on for Olic. "What Peter Badcock should have typed," writes Glenn Ashcroft, "is:10 PRINT "Steve is cool ";20 GOTO 10Then, with the space at the end of the sentence and the semi colon, themessage would have filled the entire screen rather than simply scrollingdown the left-hand side!!!!!" Is that really worth four exclamation marks????

75 min: Lampard cuts inside from the left, drops a shoulder, and unleashes a fantastic shot into the right-hand side of the goal. It's disallowed, though, as Heskey barged into Simunic like a lumbering oaf.

77 min: GOAL!!! Croatia 1-3 England. Srna beats Terry to a bouncing ball on the halfway line, streaks forward, and clips the ball inside to Mandzukic, who slides the ball under the advancing James. Very simple, that. Terry claims Srna's foot was high - he's been kicked in the head, so you can see his point. That should probably have been a free kick to England. But a lovely finish by Mandzukic nonetheless.

80 min: Good news for Joe Cole: he's not concussed and doesn't need to go to hospital. "Forget Zagreb," writes Justin Horton. OK, alright. "Have people seen the score from Switzerland? Switzerland 1 Luxembourg 2."

82 min: HAT-TRICK FOR WALCOTT! Croatia 1-4 England. Rooney takes a long Terry punt down from the sky and sends it forward to Walcott in one smooth movement. Wonderful. Walcott tears clear of the Croatian back line, such as it is now, and slips the ball calmly beneath Pletikosa. What an amazing performance from the 19-year-old.

84 min: Walcott is replaced by Beckham. "Five exclamation marks," writes Christopher Bartlett, noting that, among my many other failings, I can't even count past the number four. "More legendary Guardian journo accuracy." We aim to please. Don't forget to buy tomorrow's paper for the standalone 11-page sport section.

87 min: The Croatian crowd are giving it plenty, in an impressive show of defiance. Shame their defence wasn't as worried. Terry is replaced by Upson, and passes the armband to Ferdinand. "Why would Peter Badcock have 'Steve is Cool' scrolling all over his TV screen?" asks Seán Cassidy. "Did he have a teenage crush on Steve Carbet?"

90 min: Srna swings a free kick in from the right, but Heskey clears it halfway up the pitch with a towering header. "Have England win the World Cup?" asks Chris Oquendo. Yes, you know how the cycle turns by now.

FULL TIME: Croatia 1-4 England. So that's the first time Croatia have ever lost a competitive international at home. And what a thrashing. Poor Slaven Bilic, who will now be wishing he never said this: "England can't play good football because they play predictable football. I expect us to win this group. I expected that two years ago and now definitely so. My team is definitely better than the one which beat England twice."

Final Thought For The Day with Erik Kennedy: "At least the Croatians can celebrate Bosnia-Herzegovina's 7-0 pasting of Estonia. Oh, wait..."