England Set To Qualify? 英格兰出线有望?

England are on course 在…的途中 to qualify¹ 出线 for next summer’s World Cup in South Africa after winning five games out of five in their qualifying² group 小组预赛 so far.

It is reportedly 据报 the best start England have ever had to a World Cup qualifying campaign 预赛, putting them among the favourites 热门球队之一 to lift the cup 得冠军 in 2010.

England’s flawless 完美的，无懈可击的 campaign continued with a recent 2-1 win against Ukraine where Peter Crouch³ gave them the lead with a volley 凌空抽射 in the 29th minute. Ukraine’s Andriy Shevchenko equalised 打平 but John Terry scored the winning goal in the 85th minute.

Captain Terry maintained⁴ the team are “in a great position in the group and this (win) has really set us up 创造了（出线的）机会. Ukraine have a game in hand 还有一场可以得分的比赛 but this puts us in a great position.”

When he says “this has really set us up” he means that winning for a fifth time in their qualifying campaign has placed them in a great position to go ahead and qualify for the tournament 大型比赛 with the remaining 剩下的 matches they have to play.

To have a game in hand means Ukraine have an extra game to play compared with England – they have six games to play while England have five - so they have the potential 有机会 to score more points.

Terry is looking forward to those future games. “We’ve got Kazakhstan away 客场 and Andorra at home 主场 so it’s two tough 具有挑战的 games next but hopefully six points. At the moment things are going well.”

So they have to go to Kazakhstan to play and then they play Andorra in London. Terry thinks those games will be difficult but he hopes they will get six points from them. A team gets three points for a win, so six points for two wins.

There is a general perception⁵ 普遍认为 that England are doing so well because of Fabio Capello’s management. Capello took over in January 2008 when England’s previous manager Steve McLaren was sacked 被解雇了。

Capello has a reputation 名声 for being a strict no-nonsense 直截了当的 manager and it is believed that this style has been very successful in knocking the England team into shape 把英格兰队训练好。

While England won the match against Ukraine, there was some disappointment in the way they performed in that game. Capello said, “In midfield 中场 we lost a lot of balls and the movement was not as we had prepared. We played slowly and missed a lot of easy and important passes 传球.”

When he says they lost a lot of balls he meant they had possession 他们控制了球 but then lost it in midfield. They didn’t play quite as they had prepared in training.

He claimed “it is impossible” for the England team to be energetic 充满活力 at the moment because the English players are at the end of their season. But he is hopeful for their next two games.

“It will be very long until the Kazakhstan game and I hope when we start training for the next two games the players will be in a better physical condition 体能 than they are now.” They play Kazakhstan on 6 June.