“England is in mourning” so said David Beckham

By Nicky Hewgill

England’s soccer superstar, currently playing for LA Galaxy, summed up the mood after England’s European Championship qualification hopes literally drained away last Wednesday night.

England’s soccer fans are used to pain – it’s decades since the national side won a major international prize – but at least they are usually in the running. Dropping out in the qualification stages in Europe is surely an all time low. How could it happen to the country that invented the game?

The Championship is what keeps Europe’s international soccer players occupied in between the four-yearly World Cups. Without the competition of flashy southern hemisphere teams, they get a chance to shine in pursuit of a major prize. Even England sometimes look like they have a chance. Not this time around.

Despite an easy qualifying group, successive blunders had left the team barely able to scrape into a qualifying place. To stay in the running, they had to hold Croatia to a draw. Failing that, they had to hope that Andorra - a tiny, mountainous country with barely enough flat space for a football field - could beat the mighty Russians. To put this into perspective, Russia has a population of approximately 145 million, and Andorra just 72,000, with fewer than 5,000 males of football-playing age. Russia probably has schools bigger than that.

Even the weather joined in the drama. Torrential winter rain poured down on the new Wembley stadium, as the two teams skidded, slipped and slithered on the waterlogged pitch. Steve McLaren, the morose England manager – his career hanging in the balance – lurked under an umbrella while coach Terry Venables gloomily scribbling in a damp notebook. By contrast Slaven Bilić, the Croatian manager was up on the touchline, yelling and urging his team with wild pantomime, enjoying the chance to wallop England on home territory. His efforts were rewarded as first Kranjcar, then Olic, scored easy goals for Croatia in the first fifteen minutes.

Unbelievably, England were losing 2-0 at half time. The dripping players left the pitch at to the sound of 90,000 England fans booing and jeering from the terraces. Millions of TV viewers sloped off to make a cup of tea.

McClaren made mistakes. Choosing a rookie goalkeeper for a start. England’s usual goalie, Robinson, was nowhere in sight, having let in a criminally embarrassing own goal from Croatia in the teams’ previous meeting. David “Calamity” James – the obvious second choice - watched helplessly from the bench as balls trickled past the panicking newcomer Scott Carson, the 22-year old suffering horribly in his first competitive international. Another mistake was to change formation, leaving striker Peter Crouch exposed at the front of a defensive 4-1-4-1 pattern. Two-meter tall Crouch is a reliable scorer, but he still needs someone to deliver the ball, and Shaun Wright-Phillips was not the man for the job. The man for the job, David Beckham, was still on the bench.

McClaren changed the formation in the second half, bringing in Beckham, at last. McClaren controversially dropped Beckham at the start of the his term of office as manager, eighteen months ago. Now England’s brilliant winger had been recalled, now a veteran at 32 years old, and probably not match fit.

Could David save the day? For a while it looked like it. First a penalty shot by popular Frank Lampard found it’s way past the Croatian goalie, Pletikosa, then a pinpoint cross from Beckham was collected and placed firmly in the net in classic style by Crouch to equalise, at last. The fans scented a reprieve. England had to hold on to that draw, or better still, take the lead.

But this is not a story of a famous victory. In the 77^th minute a long shot Mladen Petrić found the back of the net. England’s qualifying hopes were in tatters, again.

Over in Andorra, the Russians were in a final minutes of a 1-0 victory. Could Andorra still save the day for England? Unlikely. Andorra has only ever won three matches in its history. The team does lead the world in foul play, however – with more fouls committed in its World Cup qualifying games than any other team – so England’s last hope was that the Andorrans would kick the Russians into submission in the closing minutes. Some hope. Minutes later, the Russian fans celebrated their unexpected good fortune, while England limped damply down the tunnel to an early bath.

The consequences? McClaren and Venables were fired, of course. The cost to the British economy is variously estimated at from 2 to 5 billion British pounds (3 – 7 billion $US). David Beckham goes back to sunny California, knowing that his next (100^th !) appearance for England will probably be a “friendly”, and thousands of England fans will have a few extra summer evenings free in 2008.

Anyone for a barbecue?