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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday June 23 2002 04.40 BST
David Beckham, who knows a thing or two about these things, was urging the media not to make David Seaman a scapegoat. Juninho was insisting Ronaldinho's free-kick was unintentional anyway, not that that made the tearful goalkeeper formerly known as Safehands feel any better. Tord Grip was arguing England showed a lack of experience when faced with 10 men and could have been a bit more patient in their build ups, but it was Sven-Göran Eriksson's comment that brought everyone in Shizuoka up short. 'At least we have departed the World Cup with our heads held high,' Eriksson said, after congratulating Brazil and suggesting they might go on to win the tournament.
Either Eriksson's grasp of English let him down or his understanding of his adopted country's history. Perhaps he meant to say 'We departed the World Cup with our tails between our legs,' but forgot the exact expression at the last moment. Or perhaps he is unaware that England generally do depart World Cups with their heads held high, and that he had just presided over an unfortunate exception. Compared with the past three World Cup exits - Argentina on penalties after playing for over an hour with 10 men, Germany on penalties at the semi-final stage, and Argentina to the Hand of God and Maradona's legitimate and fabulous second goal - there can be no doubt that England's Far Eastern adventure ended with a whimper.
The FA chief executive Adam Crozier promised to keep faith with Eriksson even if England lost all three group matches and came home early, so perhaps he is not the best person to judge, but the man chiefly responsible for hiring the first ever foreign coach also revealed that his definition of success was for England to play to their full potential. He thought Eriksson was the man to make that possible, and he will now have to confront the fact that he could have been wrong.
There is no need to clamour for the coach's head at this stage. Eliminating Argentina, surviving the Group of Death and reaching the last eight were all notable achievements, especially when Eriksson took over a team at the bottom of their qualification group and in grave danger of missing the 2002 World Cup completely. Eriksson himself departs this World Cup on the credit side of the ledger. To the memory of Munich can now be added the scalp of Argentina in Sapporo and the exhilaration of breezing past Denmark in the second round. Yet Eriksson no longer looks infallible. People have worked him out.
His weakness is inflexibility and he passes it on to his teams. England were almost undone by Sweden in the first game, after all. They were unable to react once the Swedes got back on terms. England got lucky against Argentina principally because the South Americans were too confident in their own ability to bother shackling Michael Owen or troubling to score an early goal themselves. Eriksson could hardly have asked Argentina to play in a more obliging way. Sapporo was still a famous and well-deserved victory, but by Eriksson's own admission England were clinging on desperately by the end. It was brave of Eriksson to take off Owen and send on an extra defender for the last 10 minutes, backing his defence's ability to hold out, though it was uncomfortably close. As Sweden's Magnus Hedman said after his side had prevailed in similar circumstances: 'Argentina are the best attacking side I have ever seen. How we kept them out I will never know, because we were trapped in our own half and they just kept coming and coming.'
Victory against Argentina transformed England's campaign. It was no fluke either, since Owen hit a post and Teddy Sheringham went close, though England know they had been on the rack. 'We rode our luck,' Sheringham admitted. 'We know we were outplayed for most of the game.'
England's next slice of fortune was meeting a Nigeria team that had already been eliminated, and their next was the sight of Thomas Sorensen throwing the ball into his own net a mere five minutes into the second-round game against Denmark. Once again England had a lead to protect, and even though they were able to extend it this time, they were never able to dominate the Danes in midfield to the extent the final scoreline suggested.
Eriksson's England, perhaps unsurprisingly, have a lot in common with Scandinavian teams such as Sweden and Denmark. Particularly Sweden. Eriksson says there is no better team at getting eight players behind the ball the moment it is lost, but England are fast learning the drill. There is no great science to Eriksson's system; it is basic 4-4-2 at its most unadventurous. England just sit and wait, content to hold position if not possession, biding their time until opponents make an error or leave a gap big enough for Owen to exploit.
It is not exactly fantasy football, but Eriksson (and the rest of us) have enjoyed some impressive results because Owen's speed and nerveless finishing perfectly suits the system, and players such as Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Nicky Butt have been able to hit him with quick passes played from midfield. Where Emile Heskey fits into the scheme of things is far less easy to say, although he managed to hold the ball up well against Brazil and even hit the killer pass for Owen's goal.
Which brings us to England's final bit of luck. That was not a killer ball from Heskey, it was a hopeful prod in Owen's direction which was turned into a chance by a mistake by Lucio. Had the Bayer Leverkusen defender dealt with the situation as comfortably as he ought, England might never even have made it on to the scoresheet. They certainly created very little else the rest of the afternoon, but the way Eriksson sends his teams out to play, one goal or one lucky break can often be enough.
The great problem with such a simplistic system, at least in England's case, is that if opponents manage to counter it by playing a bit of football there is no Plan B on which to fall back. Sweden played football against England, whatever Eriksson says to the contrary. So too did Denmark, and Brazil cer tainly did. They took advantage of the one moment England overstretched themselves in the first half to come right through the middle and equalise with a goal of unanswerable quality.
They raised their game to meet challenging circumstances, as great teams do. England were patently unable to do likewise, even when playing 10 men in the second half. Their only footballer remained on the bench, though if Eriksson believes Joe Cole's talent as a match-turner is more likely to be demonstrated in future World Cups, he will not get an argument here. What can be said is that the substitutions Eriksson did make were ineffective. Kieron Dyer was full of running and movement off the ball, only to look ponderous and negative when he received it.
On a couple of occasions he actually broke up attacks by passing the ball backwards, which presumably was not what Eriksson had in mind, although he could have been listening to Tord Grip stressing the virtues of patience. How long does Grip think a game lasts? England needed to be more dynamic, not less. They needed to take the game to Brazil and they needed to be less predictable.
They could not manage any of it. Seaman's response to Ronaldinho's free-kick was certainly unexpected, but Beckham is right. There is no point lumping all the blame on the goalkeeper when England were so poor in the second half. It was Rivaldo's goal, not Ronaldinho's, that knocked the stuffing out of them. One goal each, as Eriksson pointed out after the Sweden game, is not necessarily the end of the world, though in the 48th minute in Shizuoka it certainly felt like it.
England were not creating enough to be confident about taking the lead a second time, and one had the feeling that their one and only game plan had just been torn into pieces. Proof of this theory arrived when Ronaldinho was dismissed and nothing whatsoever changed. 'You would have thought it was us who had gone down to 10 men,' Dyer said with admirable candour. Eriksson himself said: 'During the second half the players were mentally and physically tired.'
Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted a flaw in this argument. If Eriksson's England can only play one way, and find it hard to respond when things go against them, what were they doing trouncing Germany 5-1 in Munich after initially going a goal down? Surely that triumph over adversity showed all the character, style and invention that was conspicuously missing against Brazil?
So it did, but in the first place, Germany are not Brazil, as we may yet see in Yokohama. In the second place, Gerrard was the driving force behind that victory, and the forward momentum he gives England was badly missed in Shizuoka. Butt looked the part against Argentina, though both he and Paul Scholes surrendered too timidly to the Brazilian midfield. Third, and not least significant, luck played its part in Munich as Eriksson has admitted.
Just before half time Seaman produced a world-class save to deny Jorg Bohme a certain goal, then within a matter of seconds England went up the field and scored through Gerrard. That pre-interval goal had exactly the deflating effect on the Germans that Rivaldo's had on England, and Eriksson knew how close it had come to being the other way around. He also must have known it would have been almost impossible to lift England again for the second half had they gone behind a second time.
The immediate priority for England is to get Gerrard back fit again, and Gary Neville, and Beckham for that matter. The captain who ran himself into the ground against Greece would ordinarily have relished taking responsibility against a mere 10 Brazilians. Despite his positive attitude and personable contributions on press days, on the field this just wasn't Beckham's World Cup. It is a sobering thought as well as commonplace that England are over-reliant on certain players. Had Beckham broken his foot a year ago England might not have made it to Japan and Korea at all.
The second decision Eriksson must make is over a new goalkeeper. That does not necessarily mean choosing between Nigel Martyn and David James either. He has young players in every position except goal, and now would be a good time to follow Spain's example with Iker Casillas and introduce Paul Robinson or Chris Kirkland. The only difficulty is that Spain picked Casillas on the strength of his performances for Real Madrid, whereas Robinson and Kirkland will do well to get half a dozen games between them next season.
World Cup positives include Rio Ferdinand and his co-defenders, the continuing excellence of Owen and the emergence of Owen Hargreaves, as well as the strong possibility of Eriksson sticking around for more instead of being whisked off by Manchester United. That should count as a positive. England are in better shape now than they were two or even four years ago. Eriksson has some thinking to do, on his own ideas and how he transmits them to his players, though his basic disciplines of shape, organisation and defence will stand England in good stead.
Turkey apart, England do not appear to have a particularly tough European championship qualifying group, though if Eriksson brushes up on his history he will discover Glenn Hoddle's team made that mistake four years ago. In Sweden, where else? When England play Slovakia in October, this World Cup needs to be dead and buried. At least there is that to be said for going out with a whimper. England lost in Stockholm in 1998 because the defeat against Argentina still rankled. That will not happen this year. England have work to do, and everybody knows it.
