Two battle fronts will be on parade at Wembley before Croatia match

British troops will make a lap of honour at Wembley during England's Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia next Wednesday. The service men and women, who have all recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, will parade before the game.

The event has been organised by the British Forces Foundation which says it will allow the crowds to thank the army, navy and air force personnel publicly for their efforts in the Middle East. Images from the parade will be relayed to troops serving overseas.

Mark Cann, the director of the foundation which stages overseas troop entertainment, said: "We at the British Forces Foundation do not pass judgment on the rights and wrongs of wars but do think the people who serve their country, on behalf of governments the public elect, deserve the utmost respect and appreciation for what they do. We are enormously grateful to the Football Association for starting the scheme."

Geoff Thompson, the FA's chairman, said: "Where better than the national stadium, before our national team takes the field, for us to show our appreciation of not just the select few with us at the match, but British men and women serving their country around the world?"

Meanwhile, the 1966 World Cup winner George Cohen has launched a withering attack on England under Steve McClaren, branding the current crisis as "absurd". Cohen is distraught at England's struggle to qualify for Euro 2008, accusing the players of lacking passion and calling for McClaren to be replaced. The former Fulham full-back also claims the influx of foreign players has crippled the national team.

"I hope we get through but it's absurd that we are struggling to progress from this group," he said. "Qualification should have been a matter of course but what is obvious now is that we're not as good as we were. We have been awful.

"Ordinary teams give us hard work. Some of them are no better than Championship sides and the fact we can't see them off is unacceptable. I find it upsetting when I watch this England team. Look at the sides we play - some of them are genuine third-world countries. We should be beating some of these sides hands down. They don't want to play badly, but you can't say they're up for it. They don't look enthusiastic.

"McClaren's position becomes untenable if England fail to qualify. If they gave Sir Alf Ramsey the sack, they can get rid of this guy. He's been around the England team for several years, yet in the last four major competitions we've been outrageously poor. Morale is obviously poor and that's down to the manager. We look depressed. McClaren just has plan A, there's no plan B. I'd appoint Martin O'Neill as his replacement - if he wants the job. He'd be strong enough to tell the players they're not giving enough, doing enough or maybe not even good enough."

Cohen is convinced the influx of overseas players is responsible for England's shortcomings and predicts more doom and gloom for the future. "For many years we've been bringing too many foreign players in. It's helped our league tremendously but it's done nothing for our youth or England teams. We've been saying this for 15 years that we'd get to this point. Even Sir Alf Ramsey said we've got too many foreign players coming in and he could see what was going to happen."