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On Saturday, 13 international friendly matches took place in World stadiums, where most of the national teams that have already qualified for the World Cup tested their strengths - some faced each other, while others chose opponents who did not fight for a ticket to Germany.
In one of the three major clashes that took place on Saturday in Geneva, the longstanding England and Argentina national teams met. The South Americans took the lead in the 34th minute when H. Crespo scored after a pass from M. Rodriguez, but five minutes later, England's super talent W. Rooney equalized.
In the second half, after playing eight minutes, Argentina took the lead again after a precise header by W. Samuel, and just when it seemed that the match would end like that, England's forward M. Owen took action - in the 87th minute, after a pass from S. Gerrard, he equalized the score with a header, and in the last moments of the match, he scored again and snatched victory for his team.
With 208 days left until the start of the World Cup final tournament, the Italian national team also gained confidence in themselves, beating the not strongest representative team of the Netherlands 3-1. Although the visitors fell behind after 38 minutes with a goal from R. Babel, three minutes later A. Gilardino equalized the score for the hosts, and at the end of the first half, R. Vlaar scored an own goal. After the break, the Italians increased their lead and secured the victory in the 49th minute with L. Toni.
In the third giant's showdown, France hosted their eternal rival and neighbor, the German national team in Paris. In a rough first half marked by defensive mistakes, the Germans dominated, but the best chances to score went unutilized by both teams' forwards T. Henry and L. Podolski. Meanwhile, the second half saw an open game, but neither M. Ballack nor D. Cisse could find the net, so the match ended goalless.
There were also two meetings between teams participating in the World Cup: Portugal defeated Croatia 2-0 at home, while Sweden recovered twice after conceding goals against South Korea and played a draw 2-2. World champion Brazil did not spare the United Arab Emirates and scored eight goals unanswered, Ivory Coast beat Romania, while Scotland and the United States played to a draw.
All the results of Saturday's friendly matches: South Korea 2 - 2 Sweden Finland 2 - 2 Estonia Bulgaria 6 - 2 Georgia Belarus 3 - 1 Latvia PAR 2 - 3 Senegal Liechtenstein 1 - 2 Macedonia Scotland 1 - 1 USA England 3 - 2 Argentina Romania 1 - 2 Ivory Coast United Arab Emirates 0 - 8 Brazil Netherlands 1 - 3 Italy France 0 - 0 Germany Portugal 2 - 0 Croatia
