The chilling reality of France's 20 victory at Wembley on Wednesday night has left England needing a revivalist in the short term and a revisionist in the long. If the Football Association can discover a coach who combines the beliefs of Ron Greenwood with the perception of Alf Ramsey there may be hope for the old country yet.
The abrupt departure of Glenn Hoddle, whose faith in his own tactical theories had increasingly failed to draw a response from his players, could hardly have come at a worse time for England's chances of qualifying for the next European Championship, and Wednesday's performance confirmed it. The team awoke from a three-month hibernation asking 'Where are we?' and by the end of the game were none the wiser.
The FA will shortly announce the name of the man who will be in charge of England for the pivotal qualifier against Poland at Wembley on March 27. If Lancaster Gate has already lined up someone at present managing an English club it is more likely to be Kevin Keegan than Bryan Robson.
Clearly Keegan would be the most popular choice and the person best equipped to lift the spirits of a demoralised team. But over a long campaign designed to take England beyond Euro 2000 to the 2002 World Cup his temperament would become suspect if, almost inevitably, bad results produced the usual back-page batterings.
The FA's alternative would be to go for a coach with previous England experience and who is more or less available. Most of the players would be happy to see Terry Venables back in charge but the influential grey suits on the international committee would be happier offering the job to Mohamed Al Fayed.
Bobby Robson would be willing to reassume control of the national side but it is nine years since he last managed England and he would have less than a week before the Poland game to acquaint himself with the present squad, a problem which would face Roy Hodgson or anyone else the FA has in mind.
This leaves Howard Wilkinson, appointed caretaker in the wake of Hoddle's dismissal and until Wednesday night widely thought to be the person the FA would be content to leave in charge for the rest of this season's European Championship qualifiers. As he left the scene though Wilkinson wore the look of a janitor who has lost the keys to the broom cupboard.
Clearly little had happened on the pitch to help him make up his mind about whether or not he wanted to become the England coach full-time. 'I'll have to go home and think about it,' he said. 'I'll spend time in the car thinking and maybe I'll decide then.'
Wilkinson, however, has no doubts about the urgency of the situation. 'Something needs to be done and done quickly,' he declared. 'The problem the next England team have got is Poland and there is no point in looking beyond that game. It's a big game and whoever is in charge will need at least three weeks to get to grips with the problems to give himself a chance. You need some time to work on what it is you want to happen.'
Wilkinson had two training sessions with the England squad before the France match but whatever he had hoped would happen never occurred. It was the old, old story of the ball being given away to opponents who had the means to punish England for elementary errors.
Zinedine Zidane set up an historic French victory at Wembley, their first in five visits, much as Jose Luis Sierra had orchestrated a similar win by Chile a year earlier. Where Marcelo Salas had twice scored for Chile, Nicolas Anelka now repeated the feat for France.
But for Alan Shearer's two goals, Piotr Novak would have inspired Poland to a similar success at Wembley in a World Cup qualifier in October 1996. Hoddle came away from that game complaining about the number of times his team had needlessly lost possession, and on Wednesday Wilkinson repeated the criticism in similar terms.
'Don't ask me why it happened,' he said. 'I didn't know what to say at half-time. I could only say 'We can't go on like this'.
'I don't think that tonight was absolutely typical of our ability to pass. We are better than that. But it may be that the one-off against Poland will be a game in which the performance may have to be sacrificed for the right result.'
On the evidence of the France defeat it is difficult to see how one will be achieved without the other. Three elementary wall passes by Zidane helped set up three goals for Anelka, two of which counted. The one which did not, the first, was a shot that struck the underside of the crossbar with the ball bouncing down behind the line.
Television replays offered more conclusive evidence of a goal for France than they had done for England when Geoff Hurst's shot was adjudged to have crossed the line at the same end to give Ramsey's side a 32 lead against West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final.
Undaunted, Anelka proceeded to beat Nigel Martyn twice in seven minutes and again there were people on the pitch who thought it was all over. But this time they were the England players.
