By Toby Prince
Wayne Rooney broke England’s scoring record as the hosts maintained their perfect record in European Championship qualifying with a 2-0 win over Switzerland on Tuesday that secured top spot in Group E.
Rooney slammed in a penalty in the 84th minute for his 50th international goal, eclipsing Bobby Charlton’s 45-year-old England record.
England had already qualified for next year’s tournament in France and lacked intensity for most of the game. But substitute Harry Kane opened the scoring in the 67th minute after a cross from Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling was then tripped in the area to set up the spot kick for Rooney.
Switzerland stay second in the group with Slovenia climbing to third by beating Estonia 1-0. Lithuania needed an injury-time winner to beat San Marino 2-1 in a game both teams finished with 10 men.
The Swiss could have qualified with a win if Slovenia-Estonia had been a draw, but all three teams remain in the hunt for the second automatic qualifying spot. Switzerland has 15 points with Slovenia on 12 and Estonia on 10 with two rounds of games remaining. The third-place team enters a playoff.
With England having secured a berth in France with a 6-0 win at San Marino on Saturday, the focus at Wembley was mainly on Rooney’s quest to break Charlton’s record. England struggled to create chances, though, and the Manchester United striker side footed a shot wide in the 17th minute and then headed straight at goalkeeper Yann Sommer in the 51st.
Switzerland mainly focused on counterattacks, but Xherdan Shaqiri and Josip Drmic were both off target with the team’s best chances in the first half.
Instead it was Kane who finished off a well-worked move after Rooney fed the ball to Shaw running down the left flank. Kane met the defender’s low cross with a low left-footed shot inside the near post.
When Sterling was brought down in the area, shouts of “Rooney” went up around Wembley as soon as referee Gianluca Rocchi pointed to the spot. And the England captain made no mistake, hitting an unstoppable shot that Sommer got a hand to but couldn’t keep out.
In Slovenia, Robert Beric boosted the hosts’ hopes of reaching the Euro 2016 by scoring the winner in the 63rd minute.
San Marino nearly earned its second point of the campaign but Lukas Spalvis scored an injury-time winner for Lithuania. Matteo Vitaioli had equalised for San Marino in the 55th after Fiodor Cernych put the hosts ahead in the seventh. It was San Marino’s first goal in a competitive away game since April 2001, a run of 34 matches.
