England News

• Nickname:Three Lions
• Founded: 1872
• Manager:Roy Hodgson

• Ground:Wembley Stadium
• Capacity:90,000

Rio keen to avoid shock

27 Mar 2007 - 08:36:58

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England defender Rio Ferdinand is determined not to be on the end of a major shock when Steve McClaren's beleaguered side play Andorra in their latest Euro 2008 qualifier on Wednesday.

England desperately need an impressive display against the European minnows to placate fans plunged into despair after awful performances in recent qualifiers against Macedonia, Croatia and Israel.

But Ferdinand has bad memories of shocks, having played for West Ham United in their FA Cup defeat to Wrexham just over a decade ago.

"It shouldn't be difficult for us to play against a team like Andorra because we're so used to playing cup football against so-called lesser sides, and if you don't apply yourself properly then you're going to come a cropper," said the Manchester United star.

"I've been on the receiving end of a cup upset before and it's not nice. The worst was probably an FA Cup defeat against Wrexham at Upton Park.

"It was my first start for West Ham and it wasn't a great introduction to my FA Cup career. It was an embarrassment.

"It goes to a grander scale with England and the defeat against Northern Ireland is the one that stands out.

"A defeat against any home nation team goes down as embarrassing and disappointing. It's so close to home and people are there to rub it in. With the pool of players we had to choose from it was almost like an FA Cup giant-killing.

"We know there's no hiding place with England but we're used to that. We live that week in, week out with our clubs.

"At Manchester United there's no ground we go to where we expect to get a draw, every game we play we want to win and expect to win."