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Next month offers the intriguing final round of World Cup qualifiers, with plenty at stake in every continent. However, for people in England, surely the most interesting and nail-biting issue is wether their own national team will qualify for Germany 2006.

It should never have had to come to this. The England team gave a respectable showing in Euro 2004 with tantalising glimpses to what they are capable of on the world stage. Despite a controversial exit at the hands of Portugal in the quarter-finals, there was widespread optimism and a long-held belief that Germany 2006 was when it would all be put right. That England for the first time in living memory had the right blend of youth and experience, flair and steel, team ethic and technique and finally some genuine world class players. They were also supposed to be in possession of a world-class manager.

While most of the above may still be true, the sentiment that we have a manager capable of taking this side to the summit of football, is fading away quicker than Thierry Henry past a pub team twelve stone excuse of a defender. The questions first started in earnest immediately after the Portugal exit; had we not learnt from our limp capitulation to Brazil in World Cup 2002? Why did we drop back so soon after Owen’s third minute strike? Why wasn’t there a Plan B for when Rooney got injured? Does Sven have the passion for the England manager job?

Perhaps these are questions that are easily asked when looking through the hindsight-o-scope by the armchair football fan. Perhaps it is too easy for us to sit in our living rooms and say we know better and criticise Mr. Eriksson. However, we are not paid 5 million pounds a year to spend our time coming up with the way for England to dominate world football. Mr. Eriksson is.

Still, after Euro 2004, many called for Sven Goran-Eriksson to be given time. That it would still all come right in the end. Sven fluffed his opening lines as England could only muster a 2-2 draw with Austria in the opening game last September. Could this coach not also find a decent goalkeeper and stick with them?

These questions were put to the back of the mind as England then strode forward with a well deserved 2-1 win in Poland and a 2-0 dispatching of local rivals Wales. The football was still not what fans had to come expect with a potentially intoxicating combination of Gerrard, Rooney, Beckham, Owen and Lampard all playing for one side. But ‘time’ was as ever the cry. Things would come right.

Any conviction of a slowly improving side, were again dashed as England crawled past Azerbaijan on a muddy night in Baku by a 1-0 scoreline. The pessimism, however, was again offset by a long overdue convincing performance in the 4-0 win over Northern Ireland and a comfortable, if unspectacular win against Azerbaijan at home.

That was back in March. The summer saw a continued debate over the credentials of the Swede for guiding England to World Cup glory. No-one seriously questioned that perhaps England may not even be there.

A friendly in Copenhagen did not arouse much interest at first as to be an indicator of where this England team under Mr. Eriksson was heading. That was until the team walked off at the final whistle to a 4-1 defeat scoreline with an equally disappointing and abject performance. This time the questions were more pressing and filled with genuine worry. Does Sven Goran-Eriksson really know what he is doing to the England team? Afterwards, Mr. Eriksson could but apologise, firmly (well as firmly as he ever does) promising that this would never happen again, ‘No, absolutely not,’ was his defiant cry.

A narrow 1-0 win in Cardiff against Wales saw a new formation but the same type of tepid performance that has marked out this qualifying campaign. It was hard to tell what to make of it all. Was this the time to start a new 4-5-1 system, so late on in the qualifiers? Perhaps Sven felt damned if he did change anything and damned if he didn’t, once again hearing our echoes of , ‘Five million pounds to do what exactly?’

And then, with one stroke of David Healy’s boot, the potential crisis became a reality. Northern Ireland, a team ranked 116 in the world and who had only just scraped their first international win in four years, had slayed the Goliath that was England’s supposed finest team for forty years. There was no hiding place now for Sven. But more crucially to the nation, our prospects of World Cup qualification, lay genuinely in doubt. Suddenly, there was no more talk of when we arrived in Germany how we would fare, but if we could even get as far as Germany 2006.

Mr. Eriksson will no doubt point to the fact that qualification is still in England’s hands, albeit requiring two victories from their final two games against Austria and the impressive Poland, who lead the group. And he is correct in saying so. But who now has the confidence of those results being achieved? The new system that was meant to be the saviour to the campaign, may have just have complicated matters at best, or blown our qualification chances at worst.  

It is all very well for Sven to point out that we can still do it. But what if we don’t? What if, we don’t make it to 2006, the first time we were meant to genuinely have had all the right ingredients to brew up a World Cup success and end the now forty year wait for glory.

The speculation has reached fever pitch. Complicating our qualifying predicament is the future of Mr. Eriksson. He is contracted until 2008, will by most peoples estimation leave in 2006, but should by account of all the fans who watched the Northern Ireland game, not see out 2005 as England manager. It is a messy situation.

Should the FA have sacked me following the Belfast debacle? They have given him at least until these qualifiers it seems for now. But should England not qualify, do they sack him then? This would seem certain, were it not for the likely ten million pound compensation they would have to pay; money the FA simply does not have.

Or even if England do scrape it, would they trust this man with forty years of hope and expectation? Or make a bold move in changing something that was not completely broken, at least not yet. The questions of what they should or would do based on the performances in Germany 2006, will certainly have to wait for now, indeed if ever they do get the opportunity to be asked.

In any case, what is definitely true is that England’s World Cup qualifying campaign lies on an uneasy balance. The pendulum would seem to have a few swings left in it yet. Whilst we can only hope that after both games at Old Trafford in October it settles on the side reading Germany 2006 qualification, we can certainly be sure that Mr. Eriksson’s reputation and future very much depend on these two games.