Chicharito has become a global superstar – the five things we learned from international week

Not quite half-strength but not exactly endowed with all their stars either, Spain handed out a lesson to USA on Saturday in Massachusetts. Santi Cazorla, David Silva and Borja Valero excelled as tensions between Real Madrid and Barcelona thawed a month after the ill-tempered Clasico showdowns.

There was an end-of-season ease about the Spanish play and it even featured a goal, happily, for Fernando Torres.

Parochial tensions had been stoked during the club season by Spanish media keen to exploit any slip of the tongue and hint at a story that never really materialised between the factions of Madrid and Barca.

The national team was all smiles as the patriarchal serenity of Vicente Del Bosque galvanised the group. Spain are by far and away the best team in the world, an absolute joy to watch. It would be a shame if anything were to come between their excellent performers and fray integral relationships.

Egypt stare into the abyss after being hit by a ‘perfect storm’

The seven-times champions of Africa will probably not get a chance to defend the crown they won most recently in 2010 as a 0-0 stalemate against South Africa in Cairo left them bottom of Afcon qualification Group G with two points and two matches to play. In order to qualify for the competition in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, Hassan Shehata’s side need to gain maximum points in their fixtures against Sierra Leone and Niger and hope that those two sides pick up nothing in their clashes against South Africa.

The Egyptians started their campaign hopelessly, drawing at home to Sierra Leone before succumbing to defeats at Niger and South Africa. The 1-0 reverse at Ellis Park came at a time of gross instability for the north African nation, following the revolution against the regime of Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. The Egyptian Premier League was stopped dead in its tracks and the national team, which draws heavily on the domestic league for players, suffered from a lack of form and fitness in key men.

Like England, this Egyptian side has been largely unchanged in the last three or four years and, despite being far and away the best side in Angola last year, the rot has well and truly settled in. Furthermore, the new performers brought in by the manager have not been up to the standard of their predecessors – a golden generation in the truest sense.

The Egyptians, on a sporting level, have been hit by a perfect storm of factors which have inhibited the performance of the national team; a slow start to the qualification process, an end of a cycle for players including Ahmed Hassan and Wael Gomaa, lack of competitive action for the majority of the squad and injury to Mohamed Zidan.

All is not lost as yet for the team who won the last three Afcon titles but their fate is no longer their own. Only two wins and a large portion of fortune can save them now.

England need to learn about humilty from their rivals

The manner in which some sections of the British press dissected their 2-2 draw with Switzerland gave the impression that Ottmar Hitzfeld’s side are a group of rank amateurs and England some sort of football superpower. They haven’t been a major player on the world scene for two generations but that does not stop a heavy stream of criticism towards the coach Fabio Capello nor the players.

Granted, some in white performed poorly and the manager made some startling decisions, not least the one which prompted him to leave out the roving danger that is Ashley Young. But this England team, even when the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard were at their peak, have achieved precisely nothing. Why does the delusion persist that they should be smashing all comers out of the park?

English football needs renewal, it goes without saying, but it also needs a smack across the face with the wet fish of realism. The senior national team and the circus it brings could do with learning a few lessons from European rivals. France, Germany and Italy are three teams who have enjoyed more success on the international stage and more recently too. But those trio of nations have successfully managed to downplay expectations around the team in more difficult times and a dose of humility has been added to the comments in and around the sides. France, Germany and Italy have managed to marry renewal in the playing ranks with a humble attitude towards their prospects off the pitch. All three are sailing serenely towards Euro 2012.

In the case of France and Italy, a healthy qualification process follows a disastrous World Cup 2010. England were scarcely better. Both teams changed managers and ripped it all up to start again. England didn’t; the team and its critics are making the same old mistakes. Maybe after Euro 2012 ‘key’ monolithic players will have retired and the renewal process can really begin.

It’s a dirty old game

Mohamed Bin Hammam, Jack Warner, Sepp Blatter and assorted associates sabotaged the weekend of the Champions League final as accusations and counter accusations detracted from the build-up to what should have been the most enjoyable game of the season.

Fifa, in the early part of last week, seemed to be an organisation teetering on the brink of collapse, its credibility and dignity in tatters. The election of Blatter as president for four more years proved to be a cut-throat business; the careers of Bin Hamamm and Warner in the arena of football administration look to be over. Fifa has some serious PR work on its hands in order to recover its lustre.

On Wednesday Nigeria defeated Argentina, 4-1, following a bizarre penalty incident in the 99th minute of the match in Lagos. The Argentines were given an inexplicable spot kick by Nigerien referee Ibrahim Chaibou for their consolation goal, as reports of irregular betting patterns swirled in the immediate aftermath. Fifa smelled a rat and called an immediate investigation. The fact that Chaibou was the official in last year’s surreal fixture between Bahrain and ‘Togo’ also set alarm bells ringing.

Combined with the current match-fixing scandal that’s currently engulfing Korean football, the incidents show that the off-field image of the game has been significantly tarnished in the last week or so. The enduring memory of the 2010-11 season should have been Lionel Messi celebrating his goal in the Champions Leage final; a moment of unadulterated joy in a beautiful game. Instead it is a ballot paper for the election of the Fifa president with one name on it.

At the top level the game is a steaming pile of corruption, back-handers, conspiracy and greed.

Chicharito is fast becoming a genuine superstar

Javier Hernandez was cut adrift as Manchester United fell to Barcelona in the Champions League final. The Mexican was isolated, unable to test the mettle of Javier Mascherano and the capabilities of Victor Valdes.

Although the final match of his club season was an underwhelming disappointment, the campaign he punched in before that was not. ‘Chicharito’ scored 20 times in 45 matches in his debut season; hitting the ground running and marking himself out as bonafide taker of chances in the mould of Pippo Inzaghi.

He has started Mexico’s Concacaf Gold Cup campaign in similar fashion. On Sunday the 23-year-old scored a hat-trick for El Tri as they hammered El Salvador 5-0 in front of 80,000 fans in Cowboys Stadium, many of whom had come to watch the region’s best known player. His international goalscoring record stands up to close scrutiny; 19 goals in 18 months with the national team including six in four matches in 2011.

At that rate it won’t be long until Chicharito surpasses Jared Borghetti as the country’s all-time leading goalscorer. Mexico have not had a player of international renown since Hugo Sanchez.

Hernandez is growing as a player with the eyes of the world on him, and he shirks nothing.

Follow Peter Staunton on .