© EuroFootball.com
On Wednesday, 23 international friendly matches were played in the world's football stadiums. In total, there were supposed to be 24 matches, but the match in Turkey, where Turkey and Tunisia were supposed to meet, did not take place due to a severe fog.
One of the most interesting matches of the day took place in Germany - the hosts, Germans, twice took the lead against Argentina after T.Fring's penalty and K.Kuranyi's precise shot, but H.Crespo equalized the result twice and secured a draw for his team.
Tactical experiments failed for England's national team coach S.G.Eriksson, whose players could not overcome the rejuvenated Dutch national team and the match ended goalless.
Meanwhile, Eriksson's colleague in Italy had a better game - M.Lippi decided to play with three forwards and the Italians comfortably defeated the Russian national team by two goals. A.Gilardino and S.Barone scored once each, while the Russians were saved from another goal by the crossbar twice.
Recently struggling France conceded the first goal in a match against Sweden, when the ball rebounded off the post and was sent into the net by F.Ljungberg, but the French team recovered and later equalized through D. Trezeguet.
Surprisingly, the Ireland national team managed to defeat European vice-champion Portugal on their home ground - the only goal of the match was scored by A.O'Brien. Meanwhile, Egypt unexpectedly easily won 4-0 against the increasingly struggling Belgium.
The reigning world champion Brazil achieved the biggest victory, crushing the Hong Kong team with a six-goal margin. Czech Republic and Norway also secured victories with significant results, defeating Slovenia and Malta respectively.
In other matches, Estonia lost 0-3 away to Venezuela, Latvia defeated Austria in a penalty shootout, Poland lost to Belarus, and Lithuania's opponents in the World Cup qualifiers, Serbia and Montenegro, drew with Bulgaria.
Results of all Wednesday's friendly matches:
Hong Kong 1 - 7 Brazil
Bulgaria 0 - 0 Serbia and Montenegro
Azerbaijan 0 - 0 Moldova
... (remaining results not shown for brevity) ...
