England's golden boys turn out to be tin men

By Jon Bramley - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - They were billed as a golden generation of footballers who would end 40-plus years of failure but 90 minutes of uninspired kick-and-run in the Wembley mud confirmed a brutal truth to the England team and their fans.

Wednesday night's abject 3-2 home defeat by Croatia not only buried England's hopes of reaching next year's European Championship finals, but showed once and for all that Steve McClaren's men were more also-rans than pacesetters.

The loss to competent rather than inspired opponents led to the sacking of head coach McClaren some 10 hours later and a frenzy of navel-gazing as the nation that gave the game to the world tried to come to terms with the failure and explain it.

Theories were ten-a-penny for the flop but all the pundits agreed on at least one point as the ramifications of the defeat were digested -- England are just not good enough.

Despite driving rain on a treacherous pitch, Croatia commanded the ball with ease rather than as the slippery bar of soap it seemed to be for most of the England players who appeared happier to hoof it forward then bring it under control.

It is a depressingly familiar story for England fans.

Yet this was no rag-bag bunch of Sunday morning public house team hackers or even the 1970s England players who failed to reach successive World Cups.

Like the players that followed Alf Ramsey's 1966 World Cup winners, today's so-called golden generation of Michael Owen, Steve Gerrard, David Beckham and Frank Lampard look destined to finish their careers by missing out on international winners' medals which generally divide the great from the good.