Whilst many, including the English fans and media, take a degree of Schadenfreude at the failings of Steve Mclaren’s England side, it would be a shame were they not to make the finals with the talents they have in the side, from pie-loving Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand to Rooney, Gerrard and Owen, they have the best individual players in Europe – the days of Heskey and Vassell are gone. Except France. And Portugal. Probably Italy too, but anyway, they have some decent players who cannot seem to gel as a team. This is in stark contrast to Croatia, who are formidable opponents despite lacking the experience and talent that they possessed by the bucketful in the late nineties.

Russia and Israel are also good teams and there is much to play for in this exciting group: the outcome is very difficult to predict and it will almost certainly take until November’s matches to see who will make it to Austria and Switzerland next summer. Israel are trying to qualify for their fist European championships and their current side presents their best chance to date.

England’s two matches against Russia will be highly influential, as will Croatia’s visit to England. JumpTV will be showing several of these games, including Croatia v Israel on 17th October and Israel v Russia and Macedonia v Croatia on 17th November – please visit http://euro2008.jumptv.com/ for more details.