Artim Sakiri has written off England's hopes of qualifying automatically for the Euro 2004 finals as he defended Macedonia over allegations of death threats against David Beckham.
Beckham was involved in a running battle with Macedonian skipper Sakiri throughout the 90 minutes of Saturday's Euro qualifier in Skopje which England eventually won 2-1.
The Real Madrid star claimed he was spat at and that one home player has said to him: "Be careful, you are going to die tonight".
But Sakiri believes that the England captain should not take such statements at face value when they are said in the heat of the battle on a football pitch.
And Sakiri insisted he had himself witnessed similar sort of outbursts from many players since joining West Brom last month.
Sakiri said: "Players in England swear all the time during matches. Every second word is a swear word. "People say things like `I'll kill you' but that doesn't mean that it is going to happen. On Saturday did anything happen to David Beckham after the game?"
Beckham said: "To be honest we were aware that they were going to try and wind us up. There were a few things going on which shouldn't happen on a football pitch.
"A few things were said and people were spitting at each other. It's not nice. A few of their players were trying to wind a few of our players up all night. I had it said to me `be careful, you're going to die tonight'."
Sakiri believed England were fortunate to escape with the three points courtesy of Wayne Rooney's first international goal and a Beckham penalty.
And he is not optimistic about their chances of obtaining a positive result in what is likely to be the group decider in Turkey next month unless there is a massive improvement.
He said: "I think that if England play the same way in Turkey as they did against Macedonia then they will get beaten 5-0.
"Certainly, if they play like they did in the first half against us, then they have got no chance of getting anything from that game."