Loftus Road, home of QPR and, for tonight, England Women.
The UEFA section qualification process for the Women's World Cup is a bit convoluted but I will endeavour to make it as clear as possible. 41 European teams are drawn into eight groups. The eight group winners are drawn into play-offs with the four winning teams joining Germany at the tournament finals. The four losing teams play-off against each other until there is one team remaining. The remaining team is then entered into a play-off against the team placed third from the CONCACAF section with the winner going to the World Cup. Simple, right?
England, the favourites being the highest FIFA ranked team (8th) in the group, share group five with a free scoring Spain side who have scored 21 goals in their first four games without conceding once. England have also started strongly, beating group whipping girls Malta 8-0 and Turkey 3-0 before Thursday's game. Their opponents at Loftus Road have narrowly lost to Spain twice and have picked up three points by defeating Malta. Realistically England must come out on top in their head-to-head clashes with Spain and win the rest of their games, starting with Austria to ensure qualification.
Two sides of Loftus Road are open for the game and just under 4,000 people have braved the light drizzle to be there. My £5 has bought me a seat on the upper tier of the South Africa Road stand, in the platinum season ticket area no less. Just 20 yards away, in front of the press box, Sir Trevor Brooking takes his seat. Plenty of families have turned up and as the teams line up and the national anthems sound out the atmosphere starts to build. Six enforced changes have been made to the England team that beat Turkey in the last outing but the squad has the depth to have this many girls out and still bring in some talented players.
The anthems are played as kick off nears.
Kick-off arrives quickly and England start well. England's right flank is particularly strong with Dunia Susi and Alex Scott combining well to create several chances. The Austrian keeper, Jasmin Pfeiler, has a poor start to the game and has to rely on a combination of good luck and help from her defenders to get her out of a few sticky situations. The England front-line continue to look threatening and as the half wears on it seems that a goal is inevitable. Lianne Sanderson duly provides with a deflected looping header on 16 minutes after some fantastic work by Eni Aluko to get a cross in. This is the highlight of the first half for England and after scoring the performance starts to slip. England give away numerous free kicks and Austria, looking good on set pieces, threaten to take advantage. England are probably happier to hear the half-time whistle than Austria.
The second half begins where the first left off. England have good chances but some excellent goal keeping from a much improved Pfeiler keep them out. Austria look threatening with the Austrian captain Nina Aigner starting to run the midfield. Most of the problems were of England's own making though, as the defenders struggle to clear their lines and begin to drop deeper. The home side were kicked back into life after a scare as a Daniella Tasch shot rattled the crossbar.
The second half gets going.
England's right came to life once more, and after a good spell of pressure Alex Scott somehow contrived to miss an absolute sitter from two yards. Striker Ellen White was handed her début as Hope Powell reshuffled, boldly replacing right back Susi. Several chances followed before Sanderson returned the earlier favour and crossed for Aluko to volley home a well struck effort. That goal effectively ended the match as a competition
It could have been three when Fara Williams, now bossing the midfield with a great array of pinpoint passing, drove an effort against the crossbar from 25 yards. Powell handed the second début of the night to Claire Rafferty and with three minutes left on the clock and the game appeared to be over. However some impressive play from Sanderson, who had shown quality touches all night, put Ellen White through to deftly lob Pfeiler in a beautiful finish to her first full international appearance.
This women's international provided great entertainment, especially for a £5 entrance fee! Women's football is slower paced than the men's game but there is no lack of skill or physical challenges. The match officials would be welcomed in any game as they did not put a foot wrong all night. The next clash against Spain will be a much tougher challenge for the lasses but this win is an important step towards qualification leaving England three points behind Spain with a game in hand.
If you are about in the London area on Thursday (1st April) then get some tickets from the Millwall website and come along to the New Den. If you can't get there but are stuck for something to do you can watch the match live on the FA website.
