England, world's most disappointing football team

As he watched England train from a seat in the Wembley stands Sir Trevor Brooking recalled the year the European Championship became a serious tournament. Weeping has always been the outcome for the English on the continent but the cause this time was tear gas.

It was 1980 - the first year the finals were stretched to eight teams — and England were drawing 1-1 with today's opponents, Belgium, in front of 15,186 spectators in Turin. "There was a big long break for crowd trouble, with a lot of tear gas," Brooking remembered as Roy Hodgson went about his work. "Clem [Ray Clemence, the goalkeeper] had to sit down for four or five minutes because he had water streaming from his eyes."

Clemence was out there on a snooker table surface coaching Joe Hart, one of the few automatic international-class choices in an England side now 90 minutes from their opening Euro 2012 fixture against France — whose unbeaten run stretches to 20 matches. For four decades Brooking and Clemence have been on the front line of England's desperate efforts to improve on a dismal record in Europe's four-yearly carnival.

The pair may have seen Time magazine's front cover for June, headlined: "The Tragedy of English Football — The sad saga of the world's most disappointing team." Alone among European World Cup winners, England have yet to lift the old Henri Delaunay Cup. They have failed to qualify five times and have never reached the final. Two semi-finals — in 1968 and 1996, the latter on home soil - are the best they can muster in a competition that has been won by Denmark, the Czech Republic and Greece.

This historical anomaly haunts all England managers. None is entitled to be discouraged quite like Hodgson, whose debut was the 1-0 win in Oslo last Saturday. Fabio Capello's successor has been permitted 15 days between his first game in charge and the collision with France. In the meantime he has lost Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard and John Ruddy to injury and has perspired over the fitness of Scott Parker and Danny Welbeck.

The brief acclimatisation period is over. That dreaded phrase — golden generation — attaches itself to Eden Hazard, Marouane Fellaini and Thomas Vermaelen as Hodgson scratches around for a front four capable of troubling Europe's best.

Selecting the back seven was easy. Hodgson can see a formula for not losing games. But winning them is more problematic, with Wayne Rooney suspended and Andy Carroll and Welbeck still on the learner slopes of their international careers.

Hart, Glen Johnson, John Terry, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and Parker form a respectable barrier to France, Sweden and Ukraine. The more exciting bit, though, may have to wait, as Brooking, the Football Association director of football development, testifies: "The spirit's good, the communication's good, Ray [Lewington] and Gary [Neville] have slotted in well. Gary knows a lot of the players.

"We've sometimes looked great in training and not delivered. Our biggest challenge will be to score enough goals - not just through the strikers but creativity in midfield. We've lost three or four in the midfield area and Wayne's not available for the first two games.

"When we look to introduce the attacking options through the young players it could be four or five years. So it's not easy for whoever's the senior coach now. Jack Wilshere, who would be our most creative talent, is not here. They're the challenges for whoever's in charge, because the England manager can't go in the transfer market."

If there was a moment when England's latest challenge came to life it was when the four first-choice defenders suddenly sported yellow bibs and skipped away for a high-intensity session against the two likely wide men, James Milner and Stewart Downing, who swung crosses in to makeshift attackers. Hodgson's favoured shape is not hard to see: two wingers and central midfielders with Gerrard driving up to support Young (the withdrawn striker) and Carroll or Welbeck when opportunity knocks.

For England, realistically, the next month is a damage limitation exercise before proper plans can be put in place for the 2014 World Cup, where their prospects are slim, by nature of the venue, Brazil. "When the draw [for Euro 2012] was being made, towards the end we were hoping to get Group A, because Poland, Russia, Czech Republic and Greece is the one you'd look at and say it's a better one on paper," Brooking admits. The new regime will not be diverted from its long-term thinking by short-term giddiness.

Not that there is much fizz about the place. England is bedecked in bunting all right but not because Hodgson's men are flying to Krakow. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee provides first-class cover for the lower expectations across the shires. Petrol station patriotism has not surfaced.

Few car flags flutter on England's roads and there is not the contrived lion's roar we normally hear when England are packing bags.

With sections of the popular press subdued by Leveson, recession biting, echoes of Auschwitz audible from England's base and a shallow talent pool in Hodgson's squad there is a coolness towards this tournament not seen for decades. England have not contested a European Championship since 2004 and their South Africa adventure ended with their worst World Cup defeat: the 4-1 loss to Germany.

This is a Vauxhall kind of expeditionary force in a Bentley age. But there is a highly professional air about this England camp. Hodgson has been quick to choose a pattern of play and establish a meritocratic mood among his players. These are strange times. Italy say they could have no objection if they were asked to pull out in the wake of another match fixing scandal and the spectre of racism and neo-Nazism hangs over the host countries.

Against that backdrop England are proceeding quite serenely, as if applying the finishing touches to a modest street party. Hats and streamers out, everyone.