Croatia deserve some credit

It was the weather; no, it was the pitch; no, no, it was all due to Wayne Rooney, John Terry and Michael Owen being injured. So ran Steve McClaren's litany of excuses.

Even more risible were the television newsreaders' repeated insistence that defeat to Croatia represented ''one of the most humiliating nights in the history of English football".

Croatia arrived at Wembley ranked 10th in the world (one place above England), finished third in the 1998 World Cup and qualified for the last two finals with an aggregate record of P18 W12 D6 L0. England may well have been abject/abysmal/pathetic but no one should belittle Croatia by calling their deserved victory ''humiliating".