England might be halfway home, but other biggies have lot of work to do

With teenage striker Wayne Rooney in top form, England should still have too much talent for Azerbaijan, who have two points from three games having drawn with Wales and Northern Ireland.

England face Azerbaijan for the first time but come up against a familiar face from 34 years ago.

The Azeris are coached by Carlos Alberto, captain of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup winning team which had beaten England 1-0 on the way to its memorable triumph in Mexico.

The former defender, who scored arguably the greatest ever World Cup goal in the 4-1 beating of Italy in the 1970 final, said England also would be the favourites on Wednesday and he feared that Rooney would cause major problems to his defenders.

“Just to play against England is a problem,” Alberto said. “We know that this young boy is a very good player. I saw many games in Euro 2004 and now he plays for Manchester United. There are two or three of our players will have to take care of him.”

England’s stars will be confident of gaining three points in Baku to make it 10 points from four games and hope that its neighbours, Wales and Northern Ireland, to do them a favour. Wales host second-place Poland, who have six points, and last-place Northern Ireland welcome Austria, who have four.

While England have picked up the pace after an opening game draw with the Austrians, other contenders have stalled. Although 1998 champions France are unbeaten, they have drawn two of their three games, both at home without scoring a goal. Their only victory was at the Faeroe Islands 2-0.

Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Ireland at Stade de France meant that striker Thierry Henry has scored just twice in 12 games for “Les Bleus,” and some of yesterday’s papers suggested the Arsenal player might even be dropped.

Three-time champions Italy lost at neighbouring Slovenia 1-0 having shown signs it was going to take a firm hold of group 5. “I’m bitter, upset, displeased,” coach Marcello Lippi said after his team’s first competitive loss under his guidance. Lippi’s team, which lost the standings lead to the Slovenes, hopes to bounce back with a victory over third-place Belarus in Parma. The Belarussians come off a 4-0 beating of last-place Moldova.

As the man who coached Brazil to its fifth World Cup triumph two years ago, Luiz Felipe Scolari never expected his Portugal side to toss away a two-goal lead for a 2-2 draw with soccer minnows Liechtenstein on Saturday.

Scolari’s men had won their opening two games against Latvia and Estonia without conceding a goal. Now they are three points adrift of leaders Slovakia and need to beat Russia at home on Wednesday to draw level.

Netherlands and the Czech Republic, the two leading candidates for qualification from group 1, each hope to make up ground on joint leaders Romania and Finland.

With five points to make up after drawing 2-2 with Macedonia on Saturday, the Dutch are furious they twice lost the lead in Skopje but hope to make up for that when they host the finns in Amsterdam. “When you have the lead twice, you count on a win,” said Dirk Kuijt, who scored the second Dutch goal in Macedonia.

The Czechs ended a run of three games without a win or a goal by beating leaders Romania 1-0 and hope to collect three more points at Armenia. Coach Karel Bruckner called up young striker Tomas Jun to replace Milan Baros, who misses the game through suspension.