Zola secures victory

GLEN HODDLE was last night contemplating one of football's truisms, that even in the frenzy of the modern game passion is still no match for professionalism.

Gianfranco Zola's goal, delivered in the 18th minute with the consummate skill of a man who had left Chelsea with little change from £5 million when they took him to London at the start of the season, consigned England to the first World Cup defeat in their history at Wembley.

And already Hoddle's hopes of leading his team to the finals of the championship in France next year are seriously, if not fatally, compromised.

Naked tribalism, conveniently packaged as sport, meant the occasion always carried a risk factor of the heart ruling the head. And sadly for England, it was a no-win policy on a night when the Italians closed ranks so efficiently that Alan Shearer and friends got few opportunities to exploit perceived weaknesses in goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi.

Content to hold what they had, the visitors funnelled back with little pretence at ambition in a second half contested almost exclusively in the vicinity of their penalty penalty area. And yet for all the pockets of danger welling up around them, they survived without too much alarm.

True, there were moments when Peruzzi's eccentricity blatantly unnerved those in front of him but the Italians knew for sure that they had prevailed when Sol Campbell, standing almost on the line, was somehow beaten by Alessandro Costacurta to Paul Merson's driven cross.

It had been a night of rich drama even by Wembley's exalted standards, but in the end Italian pragmatism triumphed over English pride and the tactical battle went unreservedly to the Italian manager, Cesare Maldini.

He set out to deny the opposition the chance of exploiting the match-winning potential of Shearer, and by dint of disciplined, man-to-man marking, restricted the Newcastle player so effectively that he never had anything approximating a real chance.

Alongside him, Matt Le Tissier's languid skills looked curiously misplaced, and even more expensively, perhaps, Steve McManaman got few chances to run at a defence in which Costacurta, Ciro Ferrara and not least the indestructible Paolo Maldini looked as if they could have gone on for ever without conceding a goal.

Ferrara, stationed at indecent proximity to Shearer for most of the evening, was quite outstanding, and McManaman's aggressive running, so often a match-winner for Liverpool over the years, was stifled at source thanks to the vigilance of Dino Baggio.

It's true that England were impoverished by the injuries which deprived them of the assorted strengths of David Seaman, Tony Adams and Paul Gascoigne, but even now there are few who will give them a realistic chance of going to Rome and returning with three points next October.

Paul Ince, defying an injury to express his competitive instincts in midfield, competed as abrasively as ever, but overall England's most effective player was Graeme Le Saux who marked his return to the team after a protracted absence with a performance of impressive authority.

For weeks, perhaps months, Hoddle had attempted to legislate for the dreaded moment when Italian flair would open the outer ring of his defence and give either Zola or Pierluigi Casiraghi a clear sight of goal.

When it happened after only 18 minutes, it was as if the clap of doom had fallen on Wembley. And the goal owed more to perception than to sorcery when, Costacurta's 40-yard pass matched Zola's incisive, deep run into the England defence. The rest was sheer perfection.

Even as Campbel and Stuart Pearce moved belatedly to close the gap, Zola gambled on the more difficult option of beating Ian Walker at the near post and the shot was struck with such power that the net was already billowing behind the goalkeeper before he quite realised it.

Minutes earlier Zola's nerve, if not his skill, had deserted him in the more straightforward task of knocking in Casiraghi's cross. But the sheer extravagance of the skill which produced the goal brooked no argument.

Sadly for England, their best chances tended to fall to Le Tissier rather than Shearer. Yet, the Southampton player was unlucky not to have scored approaching halftime when, with Peruzzi stranded in no man's land coming to collect David Batty's cross, he saw his header roll agonisingly outside the far post.

Le Saux drove an angled shot into the side netting early in the second hall, but arguably it was Italy, in a rare moment of enterprise, who created the best scoring chance in this period.

Zola's persistence earned him a corner in a one-to-three situation, and when he picked out Baggio at the far upright with the ensuing kick, even the bravest English hearts must have sensed the worst.,

For once, however, Baggio was found wanting and his miscued header set the stage for a thrilling finish in which Pearce, Ince and substitute Les Ferdinand all had chances, before the Hungarian referee, Sandor Puhl, not the most popular of men in Wembley last night, decreed that England had, run out of time in their attempt to save the game.