It resulted in the inclusion of an untested 17-year-old, Theo Walcott, in his final England squad. Seemingly, when it comes to evaluating a 20-year-old’s condition he is prepared to rely on the same force and eschew medical science. Saudi Arabia’s players, we are told, have been praying “for more power”. They have signs in their hotel bedrooms pointing towards Mecca. Japan’s representatives will doubtless be guided by their Shinto gods. Across the nations, Catholic players will have been crossing themselves in readiness for the trials ahead

Sven Goran Eriksson, it seems, has his own faith He trusts in instinct.

Sven Goran Eriksson would never dispense of the one proven goalscorer he has elected to bring to Germany and Owen’s history is worthy of more time and respect, but Crouch’s search for recognition continued on the right path against Paraguay yesterday afternoon even if the best of his attributes ultimately brought out the worst in England as they looked to the skies with alarming regularity in their opening contest in Group B.. The culprit was sitting on the sidelines wearing a familiar bemused expression.. Peter Crouch passed his audition to discover if England have an attack to cope without Wayne Rooney against the lesser lights of this World Cup, although the same cannot be said of a patently unfit Michael Owen. What price the Newcastle forward, and not the previously maligned Crouch, standing down when the cherished England No 9 is deemed match fit and tremors are felt around Sir Alex Ferguson’s home in the south of France?

This is mischief making, of course. On occasions he was fabulous, at others he was short of possession and superfluous, but do not start blaming the England captain. For those suffering from jingoistic blindness, that would have been on the lines of “at others we were awful”.

Fittingly for the man whose time had arrived, Beckham summed up the team precisely. David Beckham looked hot and bothered and, frankly, he should have done. “We were good at times,” Golden Balls said in the immediate aftermath of England’s 1-0 win over Paraguay, but had the sense to curtail the obvious conclusion to the sentence. It is always worth remembering that the last time England progressed as far as the semi-final of a World Cup, their first game (a dreadful 1-1 draw with Ireland) had been greeted with red-top calls to ” bring them home”.. But a win is a win, and the country has been short enough of those in the past on days when all the hype and build-up finally gives way to some football. Stronger opposition would surely have been capable of finding an equaliser to the early own-goal forced by David Beckham’s superb free-kick.