Verdict on Sven's England

Three quarter-finals and three defeats is the evidence on which Sven-Goran Eriksson will be judged.

Football being the sort of drama that rarely resists a cliche or a corny plot, there was a certain inevitability about England meeting Portugal in the World Cup quarter-final, and even though Sven-Goran Eriksson had several reasons to hope for a happy ending this time, the eventual denouement was wearily familiar. Penalties again. Defeat again. And just for good measure, no Wayne Rooney - again.

Luiz Felipe Scolari still has not lost a game in two successive World Cup finals. He is unbeaten in 12 matches and two of the victories have accounted for England at the quarter-final stage. Since his Portugal team also proved England's nemesis at the European Championship two years ago, Scolari is left looking every inch the coach the Football Association should have secured as Eriksson's replacement, while Eriksson looks even more colourless and insipid than when put out of the World Cup by 10 men in Shizuoka four years ago.

That was a defeat by Brazil, after all, and Scolari's team did the decent thing and went on to win the tournament, hence Big Phil's spotless World Cup record. It is doubtful that Portugal will win this one, and after this failure Eriksson deserves to be, and already is being, judged much more harshly than was the case with either of his previous quarter-final defeats.

In Japan four years ago England played well enough to eliminate Argentina and Nigeria from the tournament's group of death, before enjoying a 3-0 romp against a lacklustre Denmark to set up the confrontation with Brazil. Michael Owen's goal allowed England to dream, but Brazil were too good. Two moments of sublime trickery by Ronaldinho created two goals at exactly the right time and England never had a hope of a comeback once their limited plan of hanging on to an early lead had been nullified. It was disappointing, though Eriksson had his excuses. David Beckham was not fit, David Seaman was old, Owen was struggling, Steven Gerrard and Gary Neville were at home and the whole team was exhausted. And it was hot.

Two years later, England were better prepared for Eriksson's next head-to-head with Scolari. Gerrard and Neville were back, a promising young player called Wayne Rooney had emerged and been given every encouragement at international level by Eriksson and, despite losing to France in a freak finale to their opening fixture, England played with some panache in the group games. They looked to have the measure of Portugal in Lisbon, too, until injury deprived them of Rooney midway through the game and Scolari's players fought back from a losing position to take the game to penalties. Eriksson probably erred in allowing Beckham to take and miss England's first, when the captain had missed his last two penalties during games.

What counted against Eriksson then was his apparent inability, once again, to make changes from the sidelines. When Rooney left the field England's confidence went with him, and only in part because Darius Vassell was not the most inspiring of substitutes. Eriksson's substitutions throughout the tournament were questionable, particularly when he replaced Rooney with Emile Heskey for no apparent reason in the opening game, only for the substitute to dozily give away the free-kick that let France back in.

In private, Eriksson would probably agree that England have little quality in reserve and that ideally he would not have been forced to use Heskey and Vassell at all, though the job is all about making best use of the available resources. Scolari proved that in Lisbon, effectively silencing sceptics such as Gary Lineker who suggested anyone could win a World Cup with Brazil. Not only did he switch formations during the game, changing a predictable 4-2-3-1 to a much more dynamic 3-4-3 when Portugal went a goal behind, Scolari saw his side draw level with a goal from Helder Postiga, a Tottenham misfit who had scored two domestic goals all season. Postiga rubbed it in by scoring in yesterday's shoot-out.

Perhaps Scolari was obliged to make changes - he had to produce some response to going a goal down - but it was precisely Eriksson's inability to do that two years earlier that had brought the first wave of criticism over his coaching credentials. Eriksson has spent most of his six years in England being criticised for all manner of private indiscretions from taking out Ulrika Jonsson and Faria Alam to being taken in by the News of the World's fake sheikh, from earning disapproval by being disloyal to the reclusive Nancy to earning a pay rise by being disloyal to England by talking to Manchester United and Chelsea, but this was the first time his contribution to the footballing cause came under attack.

When England thumped Germany 5-1 in Munich five years ago to rescue a World Cup qualifying campaign that had apparently hit the buffers under Kevin Keegan and Howard Wilkinson, Eriksson earned himself a lengthy honeymoon period. His rosy glow survived a deeply unimpressive performance against Greece at Old Trafford to clinch qualification for Japan. England would have lost, and deservedly, but for the famous last-minute free-kick with which Beckham earned a draw, and even then a potentially tricky play-off against Ukraine was only avoided by dint of Germany's dismal performance in drawing 0-0 against Finland at home. That allowed England to top the group and go to Japan with some momentum behind them, yet it was Germany, supposedly with their poorest team in years, who not only overcame Ukraine in the play-off but went all the way to the final in Yokohama. They met Brazil, arguably the first decent team they encountered in the whole tournament, and like England before them, were found wanting.

Whereas the Germans were admired for sticking around with limited resources, Eriksson found himself accused of squandering England's much richer talent. By the time Euro 2004 came around there was much talk of a golden generation of English players, a group of experienced though still mostly youthful individuals whose time had come. It was thought England might start with the European Championship, before going on to win the World Cup in 2006. Looking around at the other European squads, it was impossible not to believe that England would not reach the final, or the semis at the very least. So when Eriksson failed against Scolari a second time, leaving the field clear for unheralded Greece to make talk of golden generations (Portugal had one, too) sound fanciful and presumptuous, there were questions to be asked about Eriksson's over-conservative coaching, and this time they were being asked by the players.

'We were knackered in extra time from all the defending,' David James said. 'It might have been easier to try and win the game in normal time, the policy of what we have we hold seemed to rebound on us.' John Terry said the same. 'Maybe we should have taken the game to Portugal more,' the Chelsea captain said. 'One goal is never really enough.'

For the second time in two years, Eriksson had been caught out trying to hang on to a one-goal lead. Perhaps it was the right tactic against Brazil, but it seemed a lot less excusable against Portugal. Either way, there was a distinct lack of a Plan B on both occasions when Plan A went out of the window. Against Portugal Eriksson actually compromised England's chances of scoring further goals by making defensive substitutions. He replaced Gerrard and Scholes with Neville and Hargreaves, so that when England had to win the game all over again they found themselves short of attacking ideas. Significantly it was a defender, Sol Campbell, who saw what would have been a winning goal disallowed in the last minute of normal time and a midfielder, Frank Lampard, who equalised Rui Costa's effort in extra time. His reputation as a cautious, defensive coach was now set.

Eriksson has found it hard to shake off, despite possessing one of the most extraordinary attacking players around in Rooney. Not many of Eriksson's England predecessors would have introduced the then Everton striker at such an early age, and although it could be said playing Rooney was not that much of a gamble - both in terms of the player's precociousness and the limited available alternatives - the coach showed a deftness and decisiveness in assimilating the 17-year-old that belies his staid reputation. Maybe he thought he could pull off the same trick with Theo Walcott, in which case he must be disappointed.

It is not Eriksson's fault that injury and his bad temper has dogged Rooney once again in this tournament, though the fact that he went through the entire qualification cycle without scoring should have sounded a few alarms. Especially as England were only up against Wales, Northern Ireland, Austria, Azerbaijan and what now looks a poor Poland side. England actually managed to lose against Northern Ireland, which would be a blot on anyone's copybook but looks especially embarrassing when foreign expertise brought in at enormous expense - starting salary £3million a year finishing off at £5m a year for a total of a cool £24m - fails to deliver against a team of Championship players. There was the odd highlight such as the victory in Poland after the disappointing draw in Austria, but the qualification campaign for this World Cup was low-key bordering on off-key.

The build-up to the tournament itself was positively wacky, with Eriksson embarrassing himself in Dubai and having a contract extension withdrawn by the FA, who then embarrassed themselves with their lamentable efforts to secure Scolari before he was finished with Portugal.

It has emerged from Scolari in the past couple of weeks that he would have been perfectly happy to join England once this tournament was over and might even have been willing to make a private gentleman's agreement to that effect, but was not prepared to be so discourteous to his present employers or disloyal to his present players as to publicly sit down with England while he still had a job to do for Portugal. That much was obvious at the time to everyone but Brian Barwick of the FA, whose disastrous attempts at head-hunting resembled Elmer Fudd and his blunderbuss. A bit more subtlety, a little more tact and diplomacy, and Scolari could have been England manager this time next week. Instead we have Steve McClaren, already making elementary mistakes by courting selected journalists and alienating all the others, and we are asked to believe that he was the FA's first choice all along. Yeah, right. Just like it was a terrific idea to make an appointment before the World Cup, so that Eriksson and his players would not be distracted by constant questions about the succession.

By the time Eriksson had fallen in love with Peter Crouch, taken a blind leap of faith over Walcott and decided four strikers would be plenty even if two of them were injured, he appeared to be behaving as if distracted anyway. His entire philosophy now seemed to be based on the premise that you might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb, and so the cautious, studied approach disappeared in favour of bizarre selections and a new formation every week. And still England played terribly. Their chances were effectively ruined yesterday by Eriksson's decision to play Rooney on his own up front.

While results until yesterday just about justified some truly execrable performances - not much of an excuse when other teams were lighting up the tournament or at least managing to look as if they knew what they were doing - Scolari turned up on cue, in the quarter-final, with the ultimate judgment. This time Portugal were not playing at home. This time they were without Deco, easily their best player. This time England have not lost to the best team in the competition, though they might have lost to the best coach. Scolari would surely have taken England further. How will McClaren retain the respect of his players after this? Eriksson's reputation will be trashed in the next couple of weeks, and now England's World Cup is over all the stories of dressing-room unrest will emerge.

It should make interesting reading, though the Eriksson story can be told in just a few words. There's a scoreboard somewhere that reads: Scolari 3 Eriksson 0. And there's an epitaph too: Sven-Goran Eriksson, first ever overseas coach. Promising start, then spent five years taking England backwards.