Unless England rapidly acquire some further education over the next five days they could be back home watching the World Cup on television from the second round onwards. For the moment, at this level, Sven-Goran Eriksson's team look like fourth-formers who have wandered into a sixth-form college.
Given the widespread lack of World Cup experience in the squad this is hardly surprising. It is just that having taken the lead against Sweden here yesterday and dominated the first half England might have been expected to retain a sufficient grip on the match to come closer to beating the opposition for the first time in 34 years than turned out to be the case.
Instead of which their seventh draw with the Swedes in 10 encounters will have left Argentina, whom England meet in Sapporo on Friday, less concerned about the force to be unleashed upon them than the dangers of becoming over-confident in their expectations of victory.
For if England continue to give all away and defend as erratically as they did here yesterday, particularly in the second half, then Juan Sebastian Veron, Ariel Ortega, Gabriel Batistuta, Diego Simeone, Javier Zanetti and Argentina's other familiar names will hardly be troubled in beating their long-time foes.
England need to acquire something of the defensive resilience and all-round organisation shown, eventually, by Nigeria in Ibaraki. Yesterday Eriksson's faltering defence was twice rescued by David Seaman in the space of three minutes shortly after Sweden had drawn level. The Arsenal goalkeeper dived low to keep out a drive from Andreas Jakobsson and then saved with his chest to thwart Teddy Lucic.
In front of Seaman, however, a lack of craft and experience was steadily revealed. Eriksson was never going to take a hugely gifted side into this World Cup. Even at full strength, England would still have had shortcomings ripe for exploitation by teams like Sweden, who have been together longer.
For half an hour yesterday all the hype and bubble of the build-up looked like it might have convinced England themselves that the freshness of youth would sweep away cobwebs of doubt. But the longer the game went on the more obvious it became that the withdrawal of Steven Gerard had left a gap which was never going to be filled.
While Sweden's football remained in neutral, making little concerted effort to link up with Henrik Larsson and Marcus Allback, England's midfield did quite well.
The partnership of Owen Hargreaves and Paul Scholes had the edge over Tobias Linderoth and Magnus Svensson and plenty was finding its way to David Beckham and Emile Heskey on the wings.
The willingness of Darius Vassell to take on the Swedes - who were missing their injured captain Patrik Andersson - posed a greater threat than the closely-watched Michael Owen, and gave England a useful attacking option.
And when, after 21 minutes, Sol Campbell confirmed his power at set pieces by powerfully heading in Beckham's corner, Eriksson had to be pleased with the way things were shaping.
Yet even as England went ahead their supporters' band struck up the theme from The Great Escape, which turned out to be more prescient than they knew.
Campbell in fact had suffered an uncomfortable 20 minutes at the back that included two mistakes and a booking for fouling Larsson and in the end, but for Seaman, poor defending would have seen England beaten.
For all the optimistic noises which had been made on his behalf, Beckham was some way below match fitness.
Kicking the ball was no problem but he did not trust the newly-healed metatarsal in his weaker left foot sufficiently to make too many runs or make too many tackles, and he was tiring visibly when Eriksson took him off just past the hour.
Although Beckham's departure was no surprise his replacement by Kieron Dyer, who was even less ready for World Cup action after injury, defied logic. Trevor Sinclair had travelled half way round the world and back again precisely for such a contingency and looked the more obvious substitute. Dyer's contribution did little to refute this.
For the last 17 minutes Eriksson decided to bring Heskey's pace and extra weight in from the left to join up with Owen through the middle.
Vassell, England's most effective forward, was sacrificed in the process when Owen looked a better candidate. Joe Cole came off the bench to play on the left but found Sweden in the World Cup a rather different proposition to Paraguay in a warm-up.
In the matter of substitutions Eriksson was out-manoeuvred by his fellow Swedes, Lars Lagerback and Tommy Soderberg. England simply could find no response to the change of tack that followed the introduction of Andreas Svensson for Magnus Svensson early in the second half.
Once Danny Mills had failed to chest Linderoth's through-ball back to Seaman and then compounded the error with a mis-cued clearance, setting up Niclas Alexandersson for a firmly-driven equaliser, England's earlier assurance melted away in a mess of misplaced passes and muddled thinking.
Seaman saved them twice and at the last Larsson shot wide of the near post after Ashley Cole had failed to intercept a cross-field ball from Andreas Svensson.
That indeed was a great escape, but if England lose to Argentina and Sweden beat Nigeria, their World Cup hopes will surely end up hanging on some familiar barbed wire.
SUBSTITUTES
England: Dyer for Beckham (63 mins), J Cole for Vassell (74 mins). Sweden: A Svensson for M Svensson (56 mins), A Andersson for Allback (80 mins).
YELLOW CARDS
England: Campbell. Sweden: Allback, Jakobsson.
