Chronicals From 'The Premiership Diary'

7-05 Respect.

Chelsea the blue team from south west London and assembled from all around the world left Anfield, home to Liverpool FC, European Champions, with all three points after a convincing four goals to one victory.

Afterwards Mourinho talked of the respect he thought his team were due. Watching a Sunday morning fullback bustng his lungs to make a last minute challenge to prevent the oppositions sixth goal you see that players, unpaid and ungilded, know that it is the beautiful game you have to respect - not the other way round.

Manchester United graced the riverside Craven Cottage and their three two victory contained a hint of the old swagger. Somehow the pressure is focused elsewhere and each turn of the planet brings closer the summer of 2006 and the greatest test for this generation of talented English footballers.

The World Cup is to be played under European skies and to get there Austria and Poland have got to get beaten at Old Trafford. The monster English football following public will be watching and disaster is possible.

The intensity of the desire for World Cup glory might not be so embedded in the players of the visiting teams and they can play without the icy pressure of universal expectation. Rooney is suspended for the first game and Michael Owen was unfit for Newcastle at the weekend. Ashley Cole has a broken foot and suddenly for some reason Peter Crouch is being suggested as an international quality frontman. It should be straightforward enough but the edifice cracked in Belfast and fear is stalking the squad. It was against Poland at home, at Wembley, that saw England fail to qualify for World Cup finals before.

The cataclysmic sporting occasion that could be on offer in Germany with the professional footballers from England challenging for the most highly valued prize of the most popular game on earth is within sight of the footballing nation. The final strides are uncertain and young men wearing the shirts with the three lions have to play with all our hopes and dreams. The cross of St.George will be all around the stadium and all that is something the players have to bear.

Behind the eyes of every English football fan there is the dream that the way we play here in England shall be enough to win the World Cup trophy, that the boyhood shouts and triumphs on every piece of green parkland or city tarmac pitch are the same cries that could triumph on the greatest stage of all.

Dreams, of course, and dust can be the only thing that is left but dreams are sweet enough. Dreams of winning goals, penalties saved and last gasp tackles, dreams of Brazil beaten and Germany humbled. Dreams that offer moments of entire overwhelming joy - or shatter and leave nothing but the dust of smashed hope and expectation, defeat. It is a game worth respecting.

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