No luck and no semi-finals again for England

BADEN BADEN, Germany, July 2: England were left to rue missed penalties, injuries and a lack of discipline as Sven-Goran Eriksson's stewardship ended in a World Cup exit at the hands of Portugal.

Familiar excuses over the years since 1990, England could use all three after losing yesterday's quarter-final 3-1 on penalties, bereft of captain David Beckham due to injury and Wayne Rooney after a red card.

It was the second time in three World Cups that England had been let down by their spot-kicks after soldiering on with 10 men since early in the second half.

Eight years ago at St Etienne, Beckham was the culprit.

Yesterday at Gelsenkirchen, it was Rooney, the 20-year-old in whom Eriksson had placed so much faith and whose services the Swede had gone to such lengths to obtain after a foot injury.

The 2006 World Cup adds a fifth name to the grim roll-call of England's shootout failures after the 1990 and 1998 finals and the European championships of 1996 and 2004, the latter also against Portugal.

What little comfort Eriksson can take from the end of his five-and-a-half year reign is that he will at least have seen the back of his chief tormentor, Luiz Felipe Scolari.

The wily Brazilian was behind all three of England's tournament exits under Eriksson, the last two with Portugal and the first at the 2002 World Cup with his native Brazil. All were at the same quarter-final stages.

Eriksson had said after England finished qualifying last year that his team could win the World Cup, but needed luck and a respite from injuries to achieve it.

In the event, they had little of either.

England played their last hour of World Cup football without either of their first-choice strike pairing or the captain whose free kicks had earned their opening victory over Paraguay and a second-round win over Ecuador.

Michael Owen, who had played only once for Newcastle United since breaking his foot on December 31, ruptured a cruciate ligament in their final Group B draw with Sweden.

His absence effectively left Eriksson with only one other striker to call on, Peter Crouch.

That led to the 4-5-1 formation with which England struggled to land a killer blow up front, particularly with the usually goal-happy Frank Lampard having a poor tournament, summed up his shootout miss.

When he named his squad on May 8, Eriksson described untried teenager Theo Walcott as a gamble. It clearly did not come off as the 17-year-old never played in Germany.

Rooney's broken foot, sustained in April 29, overshadowed England's preparations and his gradual return in the group stages had looked promising.

But his frustration at not making the impact he wanted at these finals, in part due to playing as a lone striker, seemed to boil over as he clashed with Ricardo Carvalho.

Injuries, which had also blighted England's last World Cup, robbed Eriksson of the ideal team he had long planned to unleash at this tournament.

With Rooney and Owen at the top of their game things might well have turned out very differently for England. In the event, it was all too familiar.

REUTERS

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