England's Matthew Upson (right) celebrates scoring the opening goal with John Terry during their international friendly against Germany in Berlin yesterday. England won 2-1. - AP
LONDON (AP):
MAXI RODRIGUEZ gave Diego Maradona a winning start as Argentina coach in a 1-0 victory over Scotland yesterday and John Terry atoned for a blunder to head England to a 2-1 victory over Germany.
Maxi finished off a slick move in the eighth minute after a run and cross by Carlos Tevez and flick-on by Jonas Gutierrez at Hampden Park in Glasgow.
Maradona, who has been hired to turn Argentina's talented players into a team capable of winning the World Cup, spun around and punched the air to celebrate the victory, which was achieved despite the absence of rested stars Lionel Messi and Juan Roman Riquelme.
Central defenders
Both of England's goals in Berlin were scored by central defenders in another impressive performance by Fabio Capello's team, which has also won all four of its World Cup qualifying matches.
Matthew Upson prodded home in the 24th minute after Germany goalkeeper Rene Adler missed Stewart Downing's corner. Germany punished a mixup between Terry and goalkeeper Scott Carson and Patrick Helmes equalised in the 64th minute, but the England captain made up by heading home a free kick in the 84th.
In the only World Cup qualifying game to be played in Europe, the Czech Republic beat San Marino 3-0 to revive their chances of reaching the 2010 tournament in South Africa.
After San Marino kept the Czechs out during the first half, goals by Radoslav Kovac (47th), Zdenek Pospech (53rd) and Tomas Necid (83rd) made it an easy victory and moved the team up three places to second in Group Three, two points behind leaders Slovakia.
In more of the 23 friendlies spread across Europe, World Cup holders Italy hit back to draw 1-1 at Greece and France were held to a 0-0 draw at home by Uruguay with French fans calling for coach Raymond Domenech to quit.
Four minutes after Fanis Gekas had given the Greeks a 50th-minute lead, Luca Toni levelled to maintain Marcello Lippi's record of 31 games without a defeat. Lippi guided Italy to the 2006 World Cup title and then replaced Roberto Donadoni and shares the unbeaten record with Javier Clemente of Spain and Alfio Basile of Argentina.
Attack on ref
Norway's John Arne Riise was sent off in his team's 1-0 loss to Ukraine for kicking the ball into the referee's back after disputing a decision.
Giovanni Trapattoni had his first loss as Ireland coach in a 3-2 defeat at home to Poland and Robin van Persie scored twice in the Netherlands' 3-1 victory over Sweden.
In Asian World Cup qualifying, Mark Bresciano's goal in the fourth minute of injury-time kept Australia on course for the 2010 championship with a 1-0 victory over Bahrain.
The result maintained Australia's perfect record from three games and the team, which switched from Oceania to the Asia Confederation to achieve a more direct qualification route, looks set to be one of the four qualifiers.
