It was a midfield performance to savour for Capello as Lennon, Gerrard and Lampard all played vital roles in securing victory. The talk about whether Lampard and Gerrard can play together or not, should surely be over (for now).

I’d say more about Croatia’s performance - but the final score tells you the important fact. Who wants to read about how awful they were, when England have just qualified for the World Cup?

Scoring 31 goals in eight qualifying games is probably beyond even Capello’s expectations, but somehow he’s turned England around. When it comes to the important games, they can now play the kind of football required to get a victory.

They’ll never be the most complete set of players as a team: no first-choice goalkeeper, a right-back who can’t go backwards, short of height up front. But with a very attacking midfield line-up supporting Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey or Jermain Defoe up front, England should always get goals, and that’s what you need to win games.

The goalkeeper position is still a problem for Capello, and at the moment you could probably toss a coin between Robert Green and Ben Foster being the No.1. Both will make the squad, then draw straws for the starting place.

If England, as a collective unit (and by that I mean the entire squad) can maintain the kind of form shown at times throughout qualifying, a place in the quarter-finals would be, in my estimate, their minimum expectation.

I won’t go so far as to say they should be in the semi-finals, neither will I say they could win it. I’ll leave that to drooling journalists of the mainstream media, who love nothing more than to talk England up so much that anything but victory is a disappointment.

And when the betrayal begins, everyone with the ability to type and use the internet will have their say on how it all went wrong.

There are still eight months of a tough football season to play before the World Cup finals, and anything can happen during that time. Let us not forget that England players are prone to injury close to a major tournament, and that aside, it will be a very tough year.

European champions Spain have already qualified from Europe, as have Holland, two teams that present problems for England.

Brazil and Paraguay have also qualified from the South American qualifiers, along with Japan, Australia, North Korea and South Korea from Asia, with Ghana the sole qualifying side from Africa so far.

There will be some strong teams at the World Cup and the odd surprise party as well. England players, staff and supporters cannot expect to turn up and walk away with the trophy this time, while the press inevitably will. It happens every time England qualify and the outcome, once they get there, is usually the same.

While Capello is arguably the best man in world football at moulding winning teams, his success will be down to how his lions perform on the day.

Will the egos of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Gerrard, Lampard, and Rooney once again be England’s downfall, or have they finally matured enough to understand what they need to do in South Africa to be immortalised forever?

The rest of this week will be a good time to be a travel agent specialising in holiday packages, flights and hotels for South Africa as England fans who haven’t already booked up, rush to ensure they get there, match tickets or no match tickets.

In the mean time, anyone fancy a penalty shootout for old time’s sake?