However they reach Germany next summer, they will do so with this result shadowing every statement of belief, every affirmation of faith in their manager. Sanchez’s men quickly generated the hostility lacking in a ground holding just 14,000; every tackle was designed to sting in the game’s first five minutes. To qualify for the World Cup next summer, England must beat Austria and Poland at Old Trafford but first they must contemplate what defeat to Northern Ireland represents. Healy, a former Manchester United trainee whose Old Trafford dreams disintegrated as Beckham’s took shape, was outstanding. So, too, James Quinn, a striker who English football judges good enough only for Peterborough, and Aaron Hughes, an inspirational captain of a formidable team.

Lampard and Gerrard passed each other like strangers on a railway station platform and Rio Ferdinand was a poor imitation of an international defender There was, of course, another side to this story. “It’s amazing what you can do if you believe,” said Northern Ireland’s manager, Lawrie Sanchez, and there was no doubt at all which of these two teams believed in their leader. He now takes his place in the national team’s great historical cycle of soaring hope and crushing disappointment. There can be no unquestionable loyalty to the great stewards of his regime ­ David Beckham, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard ­ in the face of such a devastating defeat.

The problems that England have wrestled with for so long returned with a vengeance that took the breath away. The 4-5-1 formation was abandoned within an hour and 4-4-2 offered no more solace. Wayne Rooney’s temper almost saw him sent off in the first half and Eriksson admitted that he almost substituted him at half-time.

Substitutes: McCann (Southampton) for Miller, 41; Beattie (Celtic) for McFadden, 73.Referee: A Hamer (Luxembourg).. Humiliated by the men of Motherwell, Plymouth Argyle and Hull City. Laid low by the unknowns of the Championship, a devastating verdict on the regime of Sven Goran Eriksson and a blade twisted into the hopes of every Englishman who might have dared to dream about the World Cup finals next summer. England’s qualification for Germany 2006 is now back in doubt but that seemed like the least of their worries last night.

What Windsor Park will remember, on the occasion of their first victory over England in Belfast in 78 years, was David Healy’s 74th-minute goal; what the English will recall were the inadequacies we feared lurked beneath Eriksson’s methods being dragged into the open and confirmed as ghastly reality. Never has the pressure on the Swede been so intolerable, never has his policy of management by consensus failed so dreadfully, never has an England side been so humiliated since a shock 1-0 loss to the United States 55 years ago It can never be the same for Eriksson again. Defeat against a team ranked equal 116th in the world, lower than Turkmenistan, brings a focus and a scrutiny to the Swede’s modus operandi as never before. Substitutes: Braaten (Rosenborg) for Ostenstad, h-t; Arst (Tromso) for Valencia, h-t; Haested (Start) for Solli, h-t.SCOTLAND (3-4-2-1): Gordon (Hearts); Pressley (Hearts), Weir (Everton), Webster (Hearts); Alexander (Preston), Fletcher (Manchester United), Ferguson (Rangers), McNamara (Wolves); Hartley (Hearts), McFadden (Everton); K Miller (Wolves). Yet as they were pushed ever deeper, it became a test of the heading ability of David Weir and his cohorts as Arst added his height to an increasingly desperate cause.They passed it with surprisingly few alarms, and could have put the outcome beyond lingering doubt when one substitute, Craig Beattie, crossed for the other, Neil McCann, only for Myhre to turn his shot aside.