England began their qualifying group with a comfortable enough 2–0 win over a moderate Tunisian side. Next in Toulouse came Romania. Hoddle, almost perversely, preferred initially the one-paced Teddy Sheringham to the electric young Michael Owen, and stuttered accordingly. Against Tunisia in Marseille, Owen had gone on for Sheringham only in the last half-dozen minutes. Now in Toulouse he had to wait 73 minutes before he replaced an ineffectual Sheringham, with England a goal down. Owen instantly transformed the England attack, used his pace to score a spectacular equalising goal, only for a bizarrely inept piece of defending by Graeme Le Saux to let in his Chelsea colleague, Dan Petrescu, to score the winner for Romania.

Owen duly started the third qualifying game in Lens against Colombia, won 2–0 with goals from Darren Anderton and David Beckham. But the defeat by Romania condemned England to second place, and a second-round confrontation with Argentina.

Who knows how that game might have ended had it not been for a moment of disastrous petulance by David Beckham. In Saint Etienne, the battle was titanic, the resistance of an England team reduced after 47 minutes to ten men by Beckham’s expulsion and obliged to play on through half-an-hour’s extra time, was phenomenal. Brought down by the wily Diego Simeone, Beckham, lying on the ground, swung out a foot at him and was promptly expelled by the Danish referee, Kim Milton Nielsen.

The match could scarcely have had a more explosive beginning, each side scoring from a somewhat contentious penalty in the first ten minutes. When Simeone burst through the English defence, David Seaman rushed out and brought him down. There were two questions: first was it necessary to do so, secondly, was the fall excessively dramatic? In any event, Batistuta was secure with his spot kick. Much the same could be asked of Owen’s tumble in the box when he sprawled at full pelt over a challenge by the opposing centre back, Roberto Ayala. Shearer scored the penalty. Six minutes more and with superb acceleration, Owen went past both Ayala and another defender, to give England the lead.

Alas, at a traditionally crucial moment just before half time, England conceded the equaliser. Under orders from manager Daniel Passarella, once the World Cup winning captain, Argentina executed a cleverly conceived free kick, which found England’s defence lacking in awareness. The strategy was consummated when Juan Sebastian Veron found Javier Zanetti who scored.

But then, to the fury of Hoddle, who had constantly warned Beckham to curb his impetuosity, the Manchester United forward was sent off, and it became for England an inevitable war of attrition. Their defence, with Tony Adams and Sol Campbell defiant in the middle, held the Argentines at bay. Campbell even had the ball in the net, but the goal was disallowed since Shearer’s elbow had previously connected with the face of Carlos Roa, Argentina’s keeper. Against that, Gabriel Batistuta, Argentina’s prolific centre forward, for once eluded Adams, but only to head wide.

So the game ground on into extra time, with no foreshortening Golden Goal, an experiment then in force, to abbreviate it. Penalties, that superfluous abomination, would thus decide. Sergio Berti converted the first for Argentina; Alan Shearer replied. Seaman then saved from the striker Hernan Crespo, but Roa did the same from Paul Ince. Veron now scored, as did Paul Merson, on as a substitute. Ayala made it 4–3, and then the lot fell on David Batty, who had never taken a spot kick before. Roa saved, England were out; with honour.

Hoddle published his notorious diary, but nemesis awaited him. In an interview with the football correspondent of The Times, he was unwise enough to declare his belief, well enough known in Buddhist lore, that disabled people were being punished for their sins in a previous life. He had apparently said as much before, without consequences, in a radio interview, but now there was outrage. Even the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gratuitously agreed with the hosts of a morning television show that Hoddle deserved to be dismissed. Which he was. Naive as it may well have been, it hardly seemed a hanging offence. It was tempting to see it as what Freudians would call a displacement; he was actually, if belatedly, being punished for the indiscretions of his deplorable [World Cup] diary.

It still seemed harsh, not least because whatever the indiscretions of the diary, the charges of alleged arrogance, the strange ambivalence towards the emergent Owen, Hoddle’s record was surely the best since that of Ramsey, who, after all, had never had to qualify for the World Cup. And in the last analysis, England’s gallant performance against the odds could be seen as a moral victory.

© Brian Glanville 2007 Extracted from England Managers, the Toughest Job in Football, by Brian Glanville, published by Headline at £18.99. It is available for £17.09 including postage from The Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585 or buy the book here.

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