No one predicted an England victory last night in Zagreb against Croatia, one of the best football nations in the world, let alone an emphatic one.

It was all going according to plan when Croatia started strongly with Tottenham’s Luka Modric dictating things as the Midfield General, and Croatia looking dangerous every time they pushed forward.  In the first ten minutes John Terry made a few important challenges, while Rio Ferdinand hoofed three hopeful long balls in a desperate bid to find Emille Heskey.  Boring boring England.  The writing appeared to be on the wall as England at that stage definitely looked a poor side against the passing play of Croatia.

But after 25 minutes Theo Walcott, starting ahead of David Beckham and David Bentley scored his first goal in his second start for the England senior team, after a great move including Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney.

Croatia were stunned.  But not as shocked as they would be when Robert Kovac was harshly given a red card for a tackle on Joe Cole.  England started to play with more confidence and Theo Walcott, Wayne Rooney and Emille Heskey were all having a good game.  Unfortunately Joe Cole looked less than his usual impressive self.

England went on to win 4-1 against an excellent team who had never lost a competitive game at home.  This was an excellent result for England and Fabio Capello.  But let’s not get too excited!  This has already been likened to England’s 5-1 drubbing of Germany in Munich seven years ago, but that turned out to be a one-off!

If Capello keeps the team from entering cloud cuckooland and can get the team to play as a unit then England may be going places.  However, problems of the last few years are still going to haunt Capello and England when everyone is fit.  Would England have looked so dynamic if Steven Gerrard had played alongside Frank Lampard?

I would still like to see players playing in their correct positions and some more of the young England players being given a chance to express themselves in the way Theo Walcott did last night.  Wes Brown is not a right-back.  Why not show some faith in Glen Johnson?  And just imagine if England had the pace of Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young on the substitutes bench?

Last night’s amazing result has surprised alot of people, it has also given Capello more time to get things right.

South Africa, here we come!