England did not need a miracle to beat Poland 3-1 at Wembley on Saturday and for that Kevin Keegan must have been profoundly grateful. Better a pragmatic hat-trick from Paul Scholes than the tiresome business of having to keep turning water into wine.
As it is, Keegan already faces the prospect of being swept into the England job full-time by a tidal wave of hyperbole similar in strength to that which swept Glenn Hoddle out of office. However much he continues to insist that he has no intention, in the immediate term, of becoming England coach full-time once his four-match tour of duty is over, events may dictate otherwise.
No sooner had England marked his opening game in charge with a 3-1 victory which keeps alive their hopes of qualifying for next year's European Championship by winning the group, than Noel White, the chairman of the Football Association's international committee, was expressing the hope that Keegan would have a change of heart and stay on. Right on cue Mohamed Al Fayed, the Fulham chairman, has declared that, for the good of the country, he will not stand in Keegan's way.
This is clearly what the FA hoped would happen when it appointed Keegan on a short-term, part-time basis; that he would achieve sufficient success with England to reach a point which would make it extremely difficult for him to walk away. For the moment he still aims to do no more than reach the threshold of Euro 2000 before handing the squad over to a successor. Yet the more matches England win under him, the more Keegan is going to be torn between club and country.
In theory Keegan could continue part-time beyond the qualifiers against Sweden and Bulgaria in June, staying in charge of the squad for the concluding group fixtures against Luxembourg and Poland at the beginning of September. But if the Swedes beat the Poles in Chorzow on Wednesday and extend their lead at the top of Group Five to five points then the chances of England avoiding a two-legged play-off as runners-up will be slim and the need to sort out Keegan's position even more urgent.
At least his arrival as coach, along with the positive response he received from the players at Wembley, has arrested the drift which set in after last summer's World Cup. The rapture with which Saturday's victory has been greeted was born more out of relief than the reality of a fair-tomiddling England team beating an unusually poor Polish side. However, Keegan was entitled to his satisfaction.
"We might play better than that and win by more goals," he admitted, "and at times we could have defended better in midfield, but for a first performance under a new manager, given all the problems we had had with injuries, it was very, very pleasing." The importance of the victory will depend on the lessons learned from it when England face Sweden at Wembley on June 5th.
Scholes's ability to find scoring positions with well-timed runs and the net with composed, accurate finishing has long been a feature of Manchester United's success and was due a revival at international level. Even now England would readily put the clock back and trade Saturday's hat-trick for the goal he should have scored against Argentina in the World Cup which would have given Hoddle's team a 3-1 lead. How much different things might have been had Scholes not dragged that chance wide.
Earlier this season Scholes appeared more drained than most following France 98. His England performances against Sweden and Bulgaria found him well below par. But on Saturday, Keegan having echoed Bill Shankly's instruction at Liverpool to "go out and drop hand grenades", he gave England an explosive quality near goal which had been missing in the earlier qualifiers.
Andy Cole and Alan Shearer, wayward finishers in this game but each a perceptive provider, combined to set up Scholes's opening goal, an astute prod past Adam Matysek after 11 minutes. Ten minutes later Cole's first-time ball to David Beckham was followed by a superb centre from which Scholes scored, albeit inadvertently, via arm and head.
That goal should have been disallowed and after Jerzy Brzecek, Poland's captain, had slipped a low shot past David Seaman just before the half-hour, Miroslaw Trzeciak having outpaced Gary Neville before crossing as the England defence froze, all that separated the teams was an injustice. Yet England's attacking momentum seldom slackened in the second half and when Scholes headed his third, Shearer having nodded on Gary Neville's throw, a contest which had seldom been in doubt was all but over.
England: Seaman, G. Neville, Le Saux, Sherwood, Keown, Campbell, Beckham (P. Neville 78), Scholes (Redknapp 82), Shearer, Cole, McManaman (Parlour 69). Subs Not Used: Southgate, Ferdinand, Armstrong, Martyn. Booked: Scholes, Sherwood. Goals: Scholes 11, 21, 70.
Poland: Matysek, Bak, Lapinski, Ratajczyk, Zielinski, Hajto, Swierczewski (Klos 46), Iwan, Siadaczki (Kowalczyk 64), Brzeczek, Trzeciak (Juskowiak 82). Subs Not Used: Czerwiec, Waldoch, Michalski, Sidorczuk. Booked: Ratajczyk, Hajto. Goals: Brzeczek 29.
Referee: V Melo-Pereiro (Portugal).
