James Lawton: England surrender tamely to game's faded masters

Eriksson's side betrayed by an emptiness of spirit as Brazil survive the dismissal of Ronaldinho with embarrassing ease

The sun beat down mercilessly on England yesterday – and so must the judgement after Brazil, reduced to 10 men and at times, it seemed, down to the dregs of their fabulous football history, won 2-1 and staggered perilously on in pursuit of a fifth World Cup.

Defeat for Sven Goran Eriksson's men was not the matter for indictment. The crime was in the way it was allowed to happen. The quarter-final, and England's best chance of winning the game's greatest prize since Sir Alf Ramsey's team beat the world in 1966, was not yielded in unremitting battle. It was surrendered, in spirit, in wit, and in the end even in basic competence.

That must be the hard and inevitable verdict on an England team that dared us to believe they could conjure a stunning triumph after surviving the Group of Death, running the favourites, Argentina, into the ground and almost casually cuffing aside Denmark, the conquerors of the reigning champions, France.

But it was hope that shrivelled in the heat here. It was hope that, despite the burst of irrigation provided by Michael Owen's superbly taken goal after the Brazilian defender Lucio had allowed the ball to bounce off his thigh and into the path of the Englishman they feared most, turned, step by leaden step, into a shattering illusion.

The Brazilian goals that destroyed England were executed, by Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, with all the panache that has fuelled the legends of their national game, but both of them had their roots in basic English error. The first came when David Beckham leaped over the ball and allowed it to flow, with the help of a mistimed tackle by his Manchester United team-mate Paul Scholes, to the feet of Ronaldinho, who fed Rivaldo with a perfect angle to drive the ball low past David Seaman.

Ronaldinho, inflamed by self-belief now, delivered the killer blow with a free-kick which will always torment the memory of a Seaman who would later tearfully apologised to the nation. Ronaldinho, who minutes later was harshly dismissed by the Mexican referee, Felipe Ramos Rizo, for a tackle on Danny Mills, claimed that it was entirely his intention to float the ball over the head of a Seaman who had strayed critically off his line. His claim was supported by his captain, Cafu, who said he pointed out the English goalkeeper's dangerously vulnerable position just seconds before his team-mate struck the ball. But these were the details of England's defeat. The meaning of it went deeper, and cruelly so.

It was about a sad failure to seize not just a moment filled with huge promise but an understanding of the rhythm and bite that is required at the highest level of the game.

Eriksson, who will surely survive yesterday's débâcle as the man who won qualification to these finals against the odds, produced victories over Germany and Argentina and then registered as his first credential as an international manager the impressive one of reaching the quarter-finals and going out to Brazil, admitted that his team had looked tired and had not displayed either the patience or the variety of passing which might have seriously tested 10 men fighting to close down space in the draining heat.

But much more damning was the view from the Brazilian dressing room. The goalkeeper Marcos, who had been required to produce a string of spectacular saves earlier in the week against Belgium, said: "I'm exhausted by the tension of the game, but not by England. In all the time we had just 10 men [35 minutes], they didn't give me one moment of concern. I didn't have a shot to save. I could hardly believe it."

Ronaldo, who complained of tiredness to his coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, at half-time and was withdrawn shortly afterwards, said: "I'm not worried about not scoring against England – the boys had everything under control, and I'm saving a few goals for the semi-final and the final. Belgium gave us a far harder game. They tested us in defence and they put us under constant pressure. From England there was very little apart from Owen's goal."

That was England's shame. To lose is one thing. To lose absolutely, to lose physically and tactically and morally is quite another.

At the finish of the game Beckham signalled for his players to join him in a salute to all the English fans, native and Japanese who came into the fierce sun with their faces daubed in the red and white paint of the cross of St George and cheered and sang long after it was obvious that Brazil, the faded but still recognisable masters of the game, could easily survive the loss of one man and, who knew, possibly more. But the England players seemed reluctant to join Beckham in any parade, and who could say they were not right in the reading of the mood of this ground and perhaps a nation back home which had been brought to a fine point of anticipation?

England had been the chameleons of this World Cup. Sterile, long-ball speculators against Sweden, superbly motivated in beating the Argentinians, pragmatic against Nigeria, and almost lordly in their smash-and-grab assault on Denmark, this was to be their moment of truth. It would be the truth about England's potential, and the quality of Beckham's leadership, and the ability of Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt to confirm their status as world-class operators at a pivotal point in a World Cup which seemed be beckoning them forward with rare promises, and the defensive composure of Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell.

But the truth was unwelcome in its harshness. It said that we had put too much faith too early in Eriksson's imposition of new values. Beckham has plainly been required to operate at much less than proper fitness here, and it may have been his concern at fresh injury that induced his little leap over the ball and away from the crucial action. But the symbolism of it was terrible. You do not surrender the ball to Brazilians. You fight them on every inch of the field because if you do it hard enough, relentlessly enough, you might just put a few question marks against their assumption that they will always find a way to win.

England did not begin to make such an interrogation, and the emptiness of their game and their spirit was all the harder to accept after the sight of Owen seizing so voraciously on the clumsiness of Lucio. The moment Owen found space with the ball in front of Marcos you knew it was a goal, and you thought you knew that England were on their way.

Brazil, surely, were broken, all their fears about the soft underbelly of their defence against sustained pressure blazing into disabling life.

But it never began to develop like that. Owen, as well as Beckham, was clearly only on the edge of fitness, and as anything like a proper service to his feet failed to materialise, so dwindled the threat he had represented so menacingly to Brazilian hearts.

The Brazilian hearts, as it turned out, were much more steadfast and though Ronaldinho misses the semi-final against either Senegal or Turkey, the chances are that he will get another opportunity to inflict his mesmerising touch and thrilling speed in the final in Yokohama a week tomorrow. He could yet prove himself the player of this World Cup. Such a possibility is painfully academic for England now as they fly home stripped of the glory they said they could almost taste.

There is little comfort to offer them in the bitterness of their retreat. It was a defeat, they will have to accept, that they fashioned for themselves.