SOCCER: So, in grief, the Sven era finishes, and England, for all the trumpets of hype and barrels of expense, are in no different a position than they were before it all began. In St Etienne eight years ago they made an exit at a slightly earlier stage of the World Cup but in the same circumstances. A golden boy banished for a flash of petulance, some stout resistance and then the penalties like a pillow over the face.

Gelsenkirchen on Saturday wasn't the final squandering of a golden generation of English players, it was merely a team containing a few very decent players (in Premiership context) staying at the level to which England have become accustomed.

England were given a generous run through this World Cup, and even in the humble company of sides like Ecuador and Trinidad and Tobago they failed to exhibit the technical competence which might have marked them as contenders.

It's true that the selection of an unfit Wayne Rooney (among only four strikers) and the decision to play him alone up front meant England's most talented player made no impact in Germany other than on Ricardo Carvalho's testicles, but Sven-Goran Eriksson never truly had the material with which to win a World Cup.

He had no Zinedine Zidane, the genius who hours after England's exit gave a truly adult performance to haul France to the next round. He had no Fabio Canavarro or Gianluca Zambrotta, bright, composed players who have calmed Italy and led them from the back. He had nobody with the mind of Michael Ballack or the pace on the overlap of Philipp Lahm, nobody with the wit to make the most of limited talent in the way Miroslav Klose does.

And finally, he himself is no Felipe Scolari. Portugal are no more talented a side than England - their own golden generation had faded away by the time Scolari arrived in Lisbon - but a European Championship final and now a World Cup semi-final are testimony not just to the Brazilian's passion but to the strength of his tactical convictions when it comes to getting the most out of players.

Scolari provides what England thought they were paying for when they retained Eriksson. As such, it was amusing in Gelsenkirchen to hear Scolari derided from the stands with chants of "Who the fooking hell are you?" and "You'll never manage England!"

England came with their overwrought retinue of tabloid followers and their poor, lovely, brainless Wags. They saw, they were seen and they were conquered. They leave nothing behind except bar bills. There are no traces of genius written like jet trails in the summer sky.

"We practised penalties so much, I really don't know what more we could do about it," Eriksson said on Saturday, missing, deliberately perhaps, the point about England's crippling lack of self-belief.

Steven Gerrard was almost tearful as he went to take his penalty. Jamie Carragher appeared to think he had the option of taking the kick when nobody was watching. Frank Lampard, whose game was in some disarray, brought all that self-doubt to the business.

Only Owen Hargreaves, reared and fed in another football culture, took his kick with clinical professionalism.

England's dalliance with a foreign manager has been as much a reflection on English media culture generally as a disaster for English football culture. The prurient interest in Eriksson's peccadilloes and the willingness of a newspaper to set him up with the "fake sheikh" episode undoubtedly chiselled away at his authority until at this World Cup he has looked like a shellshocked parody of himself.

His captain and greatest ally, David Beckham, resigned from the English captaincy yesterday morning, thus closing the door on what will be viewed as a curious era in the English game.

In all it cost £24 million in wages and a good chunk again in paying ancillary staff. Perhaps if England had used that money on innovative national coaching schemes and a long-term attempt to change the culture of the domestic game they would be talking about a golden generation to come, not imagining they have just squandered one.

The World Cup gets down to its final four this week. Portugal, France, Germany and Italy.

England would have been imposters in that company.