When was the last time England beat a decent team?

Where I was watching it, I heard fireworks go off a minute after the England match ended today.

It was though entirely predictable. Can you remember the last time England beat a decent team at the World Cup or European Championships knockout stage? Certainly not in my lifetime. Difference in 2006 is that it didn't happen at the hands of one of the World Cup grandees - Germany, Argentina or Brazil.

Even when they reached the semis in 1990 it was by scraping past the might of Cameroon and Belgium. There's been a few friendly victories, wins in qualifiers, but not at the biggest stage when it really mattered.

I wrote at the beginning of the World Cup that Sven Goran Eriksson's tactics would be their downfall. Too eager to please all his players, at the expense of anything resembling a cohesive system. All other teams put out a structure that worked, with talent to bring off the bench later in the game. This doesn't matter because I believe that there is something indelibly in the footballing psyche of English football that doesn't believe they can really beat the better teams - an inferiority complex. When it comes down to it, there isn't the wit, the guile, the wherewithal to make it happen.

And this time they fell to Portugal. The English press has been lamenting how badly the team has played this tournament. But again, does anyone remember the last time England played well? When they beat Germany 5-1 in 2001, and not since. Sven was entrusted with too much and didn't deliver, and in truth never looked like doing so. Now the reins have been passed to Steve McClaren, but nothing will change until England get a manager who can make them believe.

UPDATE: Before anyone accuses me of jealousy, anti-Englishness - leading to sick taunts as Andy Murray was recently subjected too - let me say I love England. Well at least I don't mind England. And will not mind them even more when we have an independent Scottish media, with our own commentators so we're not subjected to the likes of Motty and Ian Wright who assume all their viewers are English. To try and understand what soaking in English based media is like, try to imagine turning on the telly and getting the French perspective on everything.

Anyway, I feel a tangent coming on, so to the other the entirely predictable retort of "Where were Scotland?". Let me say there are two categories of footballing nations:

1. Those who think they can win
2. Those who think they can't win

Scotland is in Bracket 2, and we can make fun of England because they think they are in Bracket 1. I mean, last time Scotland qualified for the World Cup in 1998 our song was called "Don't come home too soon".

Problem with England though is that Bracket 1 can be further subdivided:

• Those who expect to win
• Those who hope to win

England are in the latter, while the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Germany and Italy are in the former. Until England take that leap of belief into expecting to win, then they won't. And for that they need a Mourinho figure not the tedium of someone like Sven or the mediocrity of what's to come with Steve McClaren.

Comments

[Yasmin]

I was backing England but as you say, the system of play just never really took off, with Rooney up front on his own and never really getting any good chances.

Ironically they seemed to wake up after Rooney's sendoff - don't know why they couldn't have played with that sense of urgency throughout their other matches.

It's a quality group of players but at the end of the day they did not make an effective team. The 'splendid performance' we were promised never really materialised for England.

[Hasan]

England were unlucky, however we deserved to lose, tactics, selections and tempers were the problem.

Bring on Austria 2008, I have two theories.

1. Teams who know thye can qualify.
2. Teams who know they can't even qualify.

Where is Scotland in this on?

[Ted]

I remember they beat Spain in Euro '96. It's a matter for greater minds than I to judge whether Spain are meritorious of the tag 'decent team'.

Eriksson's greatest achievement has been to create the illusion of demand around himself. You almost got the impression that the FA were grateful to him for agreeing to manage their team. An expensive failure who led them nowhere. And it's true that McLaren will not do any better.

[Osama]

Ted, you mentioned Spain without their compulsory tag of "the great underachievers". I did remember that victory and didn't count it. It was on pens, on home soil too, and I can still remember their left-back Sergi giving the England back four a mare!

Hasan, Scotland have got Germany, France and Ukraine in their qualifying group for Euro 2008. Easy!