[ALBSA-Info] Shqiperi - Angli

[Agron Alibali]

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) 


March 25, 2001, Sunday 

Pg. 04 

Eriksson turns to Albanian spies Colin Malam on how
the coach will ensure England are not travelling into
the unknown 

By Colin Malam 


Only now will England's coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson,
turn his attention to Wednesday's match in Tirana, his
team's second World Cup qualifier in five days.
Eriksson, who has never been to Albania, intends to
make a start today on the video evidence and spying
reports with which he has been furnished. 

After yesterday's game against Finland, Eriksson said:
"I don't know very much about the place and, to tell
you the truth, I don't know anything about their team.
We have a lot of tapes and analyses, but I haven't
seen any of them yet." 

Even when it came to talking about Albania's progress
so far in the qualifying competition, Eriksson was
struggling a bit. "I know the results they've got.
They beat Greece at home 2-0 and they lost 1-0 away in
Finland, I think," he said, when in fact the result in
Finland was 2-1 to the Finns. 

The more significant of those results was the victory
over Greece. It not only made England's 1-0 defeat by
Germany at Wembley less damaging in the overall
scheme, but also gave Eriksson and his men fair
warning that Albania are not likely to be the
pushovers of old. Last night's narrow defeat in
Germany underlined the fact. 

Eriksson could call in Nicky Butt if Liverpool's
injury-prone Steven Gerrard is unavailable. 

"Nicky Butt did extremely well against Spain," the
England coach said. "We know all about his defensive
qualities - a ball-winner and very tough player. 

"He is, I suppose, a little bit unpleasant to play
against. He's always there, in the thick of the
action, but he's also a good passer of the ball. I
think he's improved a lot from what I remember of
seeing him on TV last season. So I was surprised about
that. He's a very good player." 
[PS]Sport: [ES] 

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