Lackluster England fails to excite fans

The promise of the start of a brave new England was hardly given much impetus at Wembley despite Wayne Rooney beginning his captaincy with the winning penalty in a 1-0 victory over Norway on Wednesday.

For the first time in the seven-year history of the new Wembley, the arena was less than half full for an England international as 40,181 underwhelmed fans witnessed a familiar old diet of mostly turgid, uninspiring fare from Roy Hodgson's World Cup failures, enlivened mainly by the sparky contribution of Raheem Sterling.

It was the Liverpool teenager's constant buzzing and probing at the fringes of the Norwegian defense which finally undid the visiting side after 68 fairly laborious minutes as he outfoxed and outpaced Omar Elabdellaoui, forcing the Olympiakos man into a rash challenge on the left edge of the box.