Football Classic at Wembley Stadium

Friendly encounters in world football rarely carry as much tension as a match between footballing nations England and France. On 17 November 2010, the longstanding rivals meet at London’s Wembley Stadium. Although it is only a friendly, audiences in the English capital can look forward to a high-stakes match with plenty of intriguing subplots. After a World Cup in South Africa that went less than successfully for both teams, coaches on both sides had to make a fresh start.

London has not been kind to the French. In 1908, the team suffered the heaviest defeat in its history there, losing 17–1 to Denmark. But the football landscape looks different in 2010. Nearly 100 years after that historic defeat in London, the French national team is also in the midst of a major crisis, but is working to overcome it. After France were knocked out in the group stage of the World Cup, the disappointment was hard to contain. Not only was the coach replaced, but almost the entire French squad had to undergo a major overhaul. The match against England is only a friendly, but it is the team’s first game since its World Cup exit against one of the major sides in world football. Wembley will show where France stands. At least the team recently managed a 2–0 win over Luxembourg.

The same is true of England. The national team at least made it to the knockout stages, but then crashed out of the tournament without a fight, losing 4–1 to Germany. People in London had expected more from the men wearing the Three Lions. Fabio Capello, England’s Italian coach, kept his job despite expectations to the contrary and managed to get the team back on a winning track. Although England drew with Montenegro in a European Championship qualifier, the team is once again working its way back to its former strength.