Friendlies have meaning for few

What a glorious smorgasbord of football! What Fifa-sanctioned friendly delights!

The star-spangled Wednesday action featured all the glitterati, the galacticos, the gloryboys. But it all meant nothing. Friendly internationals are just a waste of time.

Just look at Sweden 1 England 0. Reasonable first half, they make a zillion substitutions and poof! The magic was gone.

This is the last time such tinkering will be allowed. From now on, Fifa president Sepp Blatter has decreed, only six substitutes will be allowed, even in friendlies.

It hasn’t come a moment too soon. Sven Goran Eriksson made eight changes on Wednesday and poor old Alan Thompson, who has sparkled on the problematic left flank for Celtic since his move from Aston Villa, didn’t really get the chance to prove himself.

Spurs striker Jermain Defoe looked useful and may have forced his way in to England’s 22 for Euro 2004 in Portugal later this year, but in truth, neither the result nor the peformances in Gothenburg mattered a jot.

For meaningful results, you had to look elsewhere. Scotland losing 2-1 at a hushed Hampden Park against Romania pushed German boss Berti Vogts closer to the edge. Vogts insisted: ‘We were missing eight or nine players. It needs a little more time.” What?

Then we had Wales, under the increasingly accomplished former Manchester United striker Mark Hughes, beating Hungary 2-1 in Budapest. Now that is a result, and they used only four substitutes!

This was no mundane friendly. How can it be with Birmingham’s hairy monster, Robbie Savage, causing his normal mayhem?

Hungary’s German coach Lothar Matthaus, a man not unused to controversy in his playing days, said: ‘Savage was very provocative tonight. Maybe my team have to learn a lesson from that.”

The Republic of Ireland didn’t do badly either. They ended the Czech Republic’s impressive unbeaten run of 20 games with Robbie Keane of Spurs scoring the winner in a 2-1 shock at Dublin’s Lansdowne Road.

Where else can I take you?

How about Tallin in Estonia, where Northern Ireland, under new manager Lawrie Sanchez, racked up their first win in nearly three years.

Or to Cologne, where Germany beat Belgium 3-0, with manager Rudi Voller saying: ‘We need to step up a gear before Portugal.”

And how about Rotterdam, where Holland held France, unbeaten in 15, to a 0-0 draw.

France have not conceded a goal in 769 minutes of football since the 3-2 win over Turkey last June. Chelsea’s Mario Melchiot admits: ‘They’re one of the best defences in the world. The substitutions don’t change anything, you don’t even see the difference.”

In Madrid, Spain saw off Denmark 2-0 with Monaco’s Fernando Morientes and his former teammate, Real Madrid galactico Raul, scoring but still manager Inaki Saez took stick from the notorious Spanish sports papers.

The biggest of them, Marca, said: ‘The national side failed to convince. They simply didn’t play well. Saez decided to start the game with the substitutes and the experiment proved to be a complete waste of time.”

Told you.

You probably don’t care about Albania 2 Iceland 1. Or Macedonia 1 Ukraine 0.

But among the 20 friendlies played around Europe on Wednesday night, how about Portugal 1 Italy 2, or Poland 0 United States 1?

Portugal’s Brazilian World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, beaten by Christian Vieri’s header and Fabrizio Miccoli’s corner, confessed: ‘We’ve got a lot of problems. This was a step backwards.”

US coach Brian Arena said after his side’s first ever victory in Europe over a Poland side unbeaten in seven: ‘I liked what I saw. There were a lot of positives.”

So there are some satisfied souls out there after Wednesday’s action.