A FEW HIGH FIVES AND A HUG between Rio Ferdinand and John Terry were the extent of the celebrations as the referee brought an end to England’s hard and sweaty labour in Stuttgart. Perhaps the players did not have the energy. Perhaps they realised that any signs of triumphalism would have looked out of place.

England remain in this competition and we must be thankful for that, but their progress must feel like a bad joke on the Ivory Coast, the Czech Republic and Mexico, to name only three, who have all been sent home from Germany. All would have fancied their chances against Sven-Göran Eriksson’s team on this form. There is no doubt that England deserved their victory in sweltering Stuttgart, but they were grateful that Ecuador provided such a flimsy test.

We seem to be saying this after every England game but vast improvement will be required if Eriksson is to smash through the glass ceiling of the quarter-finals. He has the players to do it, particularly with a crimson-faced Wayne Rooney finishing so strongly, but the Swede has yet to convince even his own squad that he can organise them.

Yesterday, it took a player of Rooney’s rampaging strength to turn a succession of long punts into decent passes, and it required 45 minutes of anxious acclimatisation for Michael Carrick to make sense of the holding role into which he had, suddenly, been thrust on Friday morning.

England were patternless and ill-prepared in the first 45 minutes. The second half was much improved, particularly after David Beckham’s free kick on the hour opened the game up, but Eriksson still managed to make one of his typically baffling and cautious substitutions.

Leading 1-0, and with Beckham vomiting on the pitch in front of the dugout, the head coach sent on Jamie Carragher for Joe Cole so that he could use Owen Hargreaves as a second holding player. It was a depressingly negative move that he only corrected with three minutes to go when he finally sent on Aaron Lennon.

Eriksson has proved himself a competent international coach over the past five years but it will take boldness and brilliance to win this competition. Steven Gerrard is capable of it, as is Rooney, and Frank Lampard’s desperate run in front of goal surely cannot continue. Lest we forget, England are unbeaten but it has been a plodding, laboured journey to the last eight.

The sun went in at the moment of kick-off but, even without its punishing glare, England were leaden and long-ball in that opening half. The idea that they had been waiting for the knock-out rounds to come alive was mocked by football as bad as in the group stage.

Fortunately, Ecuador were being as merciful as the sunshine and failed to score with a glorious early opportunity. The defensive unease that had infected the backline in the second half against Sweden had not been eradicated with both Terry and Ferdinand looking very jumpy.

Only Ashley Cole’s desperate lunge spared Terry after he diverted a defensive header straight to Carlos Tenório. The striker beat Paul Robinson but Cole, who is improving with every match, miraculously diverted it on to the crossbar. Six inches lower and, the way England were playing, it would have been game over there and then.

Eriksson had tried three line-ups in training in 48 hours and, up to half-time, nothing about England’s performance was suggesting that he had picked the right one. To his obvious frustration, the service to Rooney consisted of balls over the top. It was hard to imagine anything less likely to bring out the best in a recuperating forward, and his own body language made that perfectly plain.

Thrown into an experimental midfield, Carrick was due some sympathy on his competitive debut. He must have felt redundant as Gerrard and Lampard kept dropping back to collect the ball and, with a collective lack of confidence, he looked understandably reluctant to seek possession.

Thankfully, the second half offered improvement from the start, with Gerrard and Rooney trying to inject some urgency. And, to Lampard’s credit, he never stopped trying despite his continued travails in the penalty box. It was from one of his breaks forward that England won the crucial free kick.

Too many of Beckham’s deadballs had thumped straight into the first man but, this time, the skipper whipped the ball over the wall and towards the goalkeeper’s bottom right-hand corner. Cristian Mora got a hand to it and, for a second, it was not clear whether it had crept in or not, but Beckham wheeled away to celebrate the goal and the fact that he had become the first England player to score in three World Cup finals.

Eriksson had been preparing to bring on Peter Crouch shortly before the breakthrough but the big striker was told to sit back down on the bench while his team-mates scrapped away to the final whistle.

They survived and there was further good news when last night’s victory over Holland took a toll on Portugal. One suspects that England will need a helping hand if Eriksson is to get the better of Luiz Felipe Scolari at the third attempt.