The Choice: ENGLAND WAFUZU KOMBE LA DUNIA BRAZIL 2014,BAADA YA KUWAPIGA POLAND 2 BILA

As the ball arrived at the feet of Leighton Baines, Roy Hodgson rose to his feet. It was as if he sensed this moment of destiny, as if he knew what to expect, as if he had been here before. Probably, he had, a hundred or more times in training. He knew the quality of the cross that Baines would deliver, he knew the calibre of his men in the middle. The ball was whipped over and there was Wayne Rooney to meet it. Rising higher, and with greater determination than the rest — every inch the match-winner.

Heading into the lead: Wayne Rooney nods the ball home to give England the lead

MATCH FACTS

England: Hart, Smalling, Cahill, Jagielka, Baines, Gerrard, Carrick (Lampard 71), Townsend (Milner 86), Rooney, Welbeck, Sturridge (Wilshere 82). Subs: Subs: Ruddy, Jones, Gibbs, Milner, Barkley, Defoe, Sterling, Lambert, Forster. Booked: Lampard, Rooney. Goals: Rooney 41, Gerrard 88. Poland: Szczesny, Wojtkowiak, Jedrzejczyk, Glik, Celeban, Blaszczykowski, Mierzejewski (Zielinski 75), Krychowiak, Sobota (Pezsko 65), M Lewandowski (Klich 46), R Lewandowski. Subs: Boruc, Wasilewski, Jodlowiec, Polanski, Wawrzyniak, Sobiech, Rzezniczak, Fabianski. Booked: Jedrzejczyk Referee: Damir Skomina (Slovenia). Attendance: 85,186

He had lost his protective headband somewhere in the build-up, so this was all him. The cross eluded Danny Welbeck and Rooney met it, steering it towards the far corner with an accuracy that left Wojciech Szczesny no chance. And England will now go to Brazil. No ifs, no buts, no play-offs. They won Group H by a point from Ukraine and remained unbeaten. Hodgson was proven no turnip, no wally. He qualified, perhaps not with the ease of Fabio Capello, but impressively nonetheless. In the final two games, England have discovered a positivity that had been missing and Hodgson now has a reasonable run of friendly encounters in which to cement it. In Andros Townsend he has unearthed an excellent wide option, and he has got Rooney scoring again. This was his seventh goal in six qualifiers and he is again among the leading scorers in European qualifying. Of course, so he was before 2010 and we all recall what happened in South Africa. Still, the pessimism can wait. Plenty of time for that. It was tense, of course, as one would expect. Poland have had a dismal campaign but any team that includes Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski cannot be taken lightly, and so it proved. England took the lead before half-time, Poland opened the second-half with a shot from substitute Mateusz Klich that was blocked en route to goal by Gary Cahill. On the hour, Lewandowski went one on one and was only kept out by Joe Hart, who made himself big to close out the options and blocked the ball with his left hand. Hart was magnificent for Manchester City against Dortmund last season, too. Lewandowski must be sick of the sight of him.

Flying: Rooney (centre) wheels away in delight after heading England into the lead

Mob rule: The England players pile on to Rooney after his goal

Kissing the badge: Rooney plants a smacker on his shirt after scoring England's opener

He's lost his headgear: Rooney's protective clothing fell off - and without it on he scored

A superb move and then Rooney headed the ball home... for more see our brilliant Match Zone Rooney goal

Yet, while the scoreline was slender, the performance in the circumstances was impressive, going forward at least. Of course there were going to be errors in front of goal, of course there were going to be moments when guaranteed qualification clung to the cliff-face by its fingertips – but this was the case all over Europe last night. The big beasts had got their business done early, true, but England are not among the superpowers right now. In the circumstances this was good enough. How a team qualified will all be forgotten once the sand of the Brazilian beaches is felt between the toes.
No doubt Hodgson isn’t the first to have been driven to use bad language by watching England in this campaign, but a swearbox installed near the dugouts at Wembley really would have been doing a roaring trade in these last two games. Hodgson’s was caught exclaiming ‘You f****** beauty!’ as Andros Townsend scored the third goal against Montenegro last Friday. This time, it was a more muted reaction to another Polish break. ‘F*** me,’ he muttered after Robert Lewandowski missed a very good chance. He won’t have been the only one. England had the best of the first half, but there were too many ‘F*** me’ moments for comfort and the fact all of them came from English set pieces would have sent a coach as regimented as Hodgson into a quiet fury. The good teams talk of locking set-piece moves in, so as to avoid the breakaway. England seemed to have adopted the swinging stable door plan instead.

At full stretch: Wojciech Szczesny dives desperately to his left but the ball goes wide

Hart stopper: England's goalkeeper makes a crucial save from Robert Lewandowski

Invader: A Polish fan runs on to the Wembley pitch

Using his head: Danny Welbeck tries to get a header on goal

Winning his battle: Chris Smalling comes away with the ball and leaves his opponent on the floor

On two occasions Poland’s horse bolted and either could have been a goal. First time out, Jakub Blaszczykowski broke before finding Waldemar Sobota, who put his shot into the side netting. Then Adrian Mierzejewski provided the outlet, Blaszczykowski dummied and Lewandowski hit a low shot that he would normally have buried, only to steer it inches wide. With the news coming in as expected from Ukraine’s match against San Marino, it was plain that only a win would do and this was another front-foot performance from Hodgson’s men. They followed on from the verve of the performance against Montenegro with another of aggression and positivity. And, while the precarious circumstances led to understandable tension, this was still an improvement from the caution of the earlier games. Townsend made a huge difference, as he did last week, and much of the first-half pressure came from his thrust down the right flank. It was Townsend who hit the bar with a left-foot shot from 25 yards after 27 minutes, Daniel Sturridge first to the rebound, forcing an excellent stop from Wojciech Sczcesny of Arsenal, getting a rare opportunity in Poland’s goal. Townsend, too, had been responsible for the excellent cross that found Sturridge in the penalty area minutes earlier, but the Liverpool man panicked, the ball became trapped beneath his feet and he ultimately finished with a missed kick: a sign of the nerves on the night, plainly — much like Danny Welbeck’s unfortunate stumble when sent through one on one, overrunning the ball and allowing Szczesny to save at his feet.

Rattling the bar: Andros Townsend sees his shot hit the woodwork with Wojciech Szczesny well beaten

Tussle: Leighton Baines keeps tabs on Poland's Piotr Celeban

Intervention: Chris Smalling (left) gets his head to the ball to snuff out a Poland attack

Floored: Danny Welbeck goes down as he tries to take a chance in the Poland area

Martin Keown spoke before the game of the worry of unequal pressure — Poland with nothing to lose, England with so much — and it was a genuine break for Hodgson that Rooney scored when he did, so the second half did not begin with his players in the play-off places. Until that point this did have more than a few signs of being one of those nights: close shaves, great saves and moments when the pressure showed. The most raucous away support seen at Wembley in a competitive match since Scotland made the play-offs for the 2000 European Championship certainly did not help ease worried minds. A near own goal by Grzegorz Wojtkowiak after eight minutes, dealing with a Leighton Baines cross under pressure from Welbeck, gave a false sense of hope. That aside, Poland defended quite brilliantly and when a Townsend shot was parried soon after, the reaction of Piotr Celeban in getting there before Welbeck was more typical of their resilience. A Steven Gerrard curling free-kick was missed by everybody — including Chris Smalling, sadly — while a Welbeck header which provoked a scramble and a wild follow-up shot could have been dealt with better. Many were relieved to see Southampton’s Artur Boruc rested for this game, but Szczesny dealt with most of England’s attacks well — not least a 35th-minute shot from Rooney.