England’s path via the qualification rounds for the 2014 FIFA World Cup takes off today with an away match against Eastern European country Moldova (2:45pm ET on ESPN3.com for readers in the United States). That’s a qualification path of 1 year, 9 months and 5 days – a brutally long and boring route that needlessly breaks up the club seasons at several inopportune times over the next 15 months.
But complain as I do about the awful international breaks, they’re not going to change anytime soon, so we may as well grin and bear it. England kicks off their match today missing several key players due to injury, but England still gets to field a strong side nevertheless.
England starting line-up: Hart; Johnson, Terry, Lescott, Baines; Milner, Gerrard, Lampard, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Cleverley; Defoe.
It’ll be important for England to get an early goal and a comfortable win today to set themselves up well for their match against Ukraine early next week.
Before, during and after today’s England match, post your rants, raves, questions and observations in the comments section below. Feel free to chat about all of the other World Cup qualifying matches that are going on today, too.
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