Second-rate fare makes England's absence so hard to take

Are the players bovvered? Many of them are on some beach, sunning themselves at a 10-star hotel, doing nothing more physically active than occasionally glancing at the diamond-studded Rolex to see how long it's taking to get the next bottle of Cristal in.

The decoupling of money from medals means most of them will have no worries at how we threw away qualification from a weak group.

I watched a few minutes of Croatia's opening game against Austria just to confirm how second rate Slaven Bilic's side are. Yet, at Wembley, we made them look like Brazil.

As for the Wally with the Brolly, he is actually there. He's a Prat in a Sun Hat without a care in the world, brazen as you like, and still living off his £2.5million pay-off from the Football Association, because otherwise he'd have been managing Manchester United, Barcelona, or AC Milan wouldn't he, ha bloody ha.

Yes, as he tells us how it should be done on the radio, Steve McClaren makes up for what he lacks in managerial skills with a brazen attitude to life that almost qualifies him to be Prime Minister. The most irritating thing is that if we were there, properly led and properly motivated, we could have done quite well.

Both the Italians and the French look clapped out, while the early form horses, the Germans and the Dutch, will soon begin to suffer from traditional weaknesses. In Germany's case, lack of flair and imagination, though that won't stop them romping away from this indifferent field, while the Dutch inconsistency will surely do for them in the end.

Fabio Capello is trying to keep us all positive, outlining his plans for 2010. He won't rely on established reputations, it won't be the end of the world if a player isn't in the Champions League, and he'll try to move away from the defensive formations he cheerfully derides as 9-0-1 etc, etc . . . Pretty obvious stuff, but doomed to failure unless our spoilt brat players want it enough, dig deep, and show some guts.

Perhaps they should have been sent to Afghanistan for the duration. That might have made men of them, which giving them all Ferraris has manifestly failed to do.