England miss out on final

England and Scotland both fell at the semi-final stage of the Toulon Under-21 tournament last night. Ray Harford's England side lost 2-0 to the hosts, France, while the Scots were beaten 4-0 by Brazil.

Two second-half goals in Cannes were just reward for the French efforts and ended an understrength England side's hopes of retaining the trophy. Harford, the coach of English champions Blackburn, had chosen not to add any of the first-choice players who took part in last week's 4-0 European Under-21 Championship victory over Latvia at Burnley to his squad.

David Watson, the Barnsley goalkeeper, did well to keep the hosts out in the first period but he was beaten on the hour by Charles Coridon. Twelve minutes from time Franck Histilloles added a second.

"Overall, it was a good performance," Harford said. "Losing is not the end of the world, and with the squad that we had we did very well to get to the semi-finals." In Le Pontet, Scotland did well to keep a rampant Brazil, three-time winners of the tournament, down to four goals.