The match which everyone looking forward to, doesn’t turn out to be what the fan expected. The country with the most popular soccer league against the country which hold the most World Cup medal. The match turn out to be first class Brazil against 2nd-tier England in Doha.

All the familar faces of England squad such as David James, Glen Johnson, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, David Beckham, Aaron Lennon, Theo Walcott and Emile Heskey was all missing. Rooney and Gareth Barry are the only first choice players left in the starting lineup for England. Rooney was handed the captaincy for the first time but failed to get a win.

Brazil was with their current best lineup without injury Robinho, with Pato, Adriano, Diego and Ronaldinho all being left out of the squad. The match saw Olympique Lyon Michel Bastos made his first international debut in the lineup while both Porto striker Hulk and TSG Hoffenheim attacking midfielders Carlos Eduardo also make their debut after coming off the bench on 81th-minutes together.

England displayed a poor performance in this match and Brazil should have won by a larger margin despite Fabiano missed a penalty on the 2nd half and Lucio hit the post  near the end. Kaka shown why he worth the transfer record when he made his switch to Real Madrid with a marvellous performance with lots of goodplay. Juventus new signing Melo also display some skill and tried out few decent attempt from far.

Current World Cup holder Italy against perfect record of 8 win and conceded only 2 goals in World Cup qualifying  Holland. A match with 2 nation well-known for their defence turns out as most expected, a boring goalless draw.

Lippi again leave out in form striker Cassano from the squad. A debut match for the Livorno midfielder Antonio Candreva with a chosen upfront partnership of Gilardino and Palladino. Its also a debut match for Davide Biondini when Palombo make space for him at the 72th-minutes. Its was more of testing players instead of fielding a competitive team from the italian side.

Holland fields their usual team with only changes as Eljero Elia replacing the injured Arjen Robben. Guess they might need Van Der Sar back during the World Cup in South Africa to do better instead of their current goalkeepers Ajax’s Maarten Stekelenburg. Van Persie took an injury early in the match which see him off 4-6 week of recovering period, a really bad news for Arsenal to lose their in-form striker when they going to face Chelsea at the end of this months where they already lose another striker Bendner earlier on which will also be out for that match.

The match was really boring with only 2 play which caught my sight. First is Buffon make a marvellous saved on free kick by Van der Vaart’s which deflected off Palladino’s head. This shown why he is still consider 1 of the few world class keeper in the world right now. The 2nd good play is when Pazzini strike in the goal into the net which later being rules as foul since the Sampdoria steer the ball with his hand before putting it into the net. A fan cause a slight disruption merely 6th-minute into the game by running onto the pitch wearing an Italy shirt with the message “Cassano in the national team”.

European Champion Spain against South American powerhouse Argentina, another worthy match for fan to stay up late just to catch it. Spain fielded an all spanish league players, while Argentina field all European league players.

Spain had a large amount of talents in this era, which is a dream for every managers in the world. Can you expects players like Reina, Fabregas, Navas and Mata were all on the bench, while players such as Barcelona goalkeeper Valdes and Real Madrid captain Raul does not even get a callup. Spain were missing of Torres and Senna from their full strength as they start off the match with 4-5-1 formation, David Villa as their targetman.

Despite Argentina only secured their World Cup spot at the end of the qualifying campaign, their strength still shouldn’t be underestimate. With Messi and Higuain on the starting lineup, Aguero and Tevez need to make space by contenting sitting on the bench.

Out of the 2 team 22 players in the lineup, there are 10 players from either Barcelona or Real Madrid. Messi was kept quiet most of the time by facing 5 of his Barcelona team-mate in the opposite team. Alonso scored a rebounce goal to get Spain ahead in the 15th minutes. While 2 penalty after the break see Messi equalise for Argentina before Alonso convert the goals to get a win for Spain. Spain have now won 38 of their 43 games since the start of 2007, and looked likely to be the favourite to lift the World Cup in South Africa.