At the end of this article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,438-2146627,00.htmlit compares the hyped up England run to the Scots back in '78. The results were:
Jun 03 Mendoza Netherlands v Iran 3-0
Jun 03 Cordoba Peru v Scotland 3-1
Jun 07 Mendoza Netherlands v Peru 0-0
Jun 07 Cordoba Iran v Scotland 1-1
Jun 11 Cordoba Peru v Iran 4-1
Jun 11 Mendoza Scotland v Netherlands 3-2
P W D L Gls Pts
PERU 3 2 1 0 7-2 5
NETHERLANDS 3 1 1 1 5-3 3
Scotland 3 1 1 1 5-6 3
Iran 3 0 1 2 2-8 1
England even have, in Sven-Göran Eriksson, a manager every bit as wacky, in his own way, as MacLeod. And England’s World Cup group fixtures mirror, in sequence, those of the Scots in ’78.
They begin with an underrated South American nation — Peru for Scotland in ’78 and Paraguay for England. Then they move on to the World Cup first-timers — Iran for Scotland and Trinidad and Tobago for England — before finishing with a respected European rival: Holland in ’78 and Sweden for England this year.
No one realistically expects England to stumble in such a group but, then, no one expected the Scots to do so when they set out for Argentina to tackle their own supposedly easy group. Sven beware.
