England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is confident he can maintain England’s impressive record of qualifying for major soccer tournaments even though he is under fire for a lack of success when they get there.
Facing up to World Cup qualifying games at Austria on Saturday and Poland in eight days’ time, Eriksson believes his team are capable of starting the campaign with two victories on the road.
”Why not get six points?” he said when asked if he would be happy with four from two away games. ”If we get less than four points life is more difficult to qualify but no, I don’t feel that my job will be in jeopardy if we don’t get four points.”
The Swede’s record in qualifying games since he took over four years ago is 11 victories and three ties with no losses.
Sadly, England couldn’t get further than the quarterfinal of the either the 2002 World Cup in Japan or this summer’s European Championship in Portugal and Eriksson has come under fire because of the team’s performances.
”The main target is to qualify for the World Cup in 2006 in one way or another,” Eriksson said. ”England must be in Germany.
”I know the qualification games went well for us and I hope it will go on but I don’t think we have had an easy qualification game. We had to fight extremely hard to win them.”
Eriksson was speaking as the England players gathered for their first training session ahead of Saturday’s game against the Austrians in Vienna. Not all of the squad of 23 have arrived so far, with the likes of Real Madrid’s David Beckham and Michael Owen due later because of club commitments.
Eriksson said that Newcastle midfielder Nicky Butt will not face the Austrians because of a hamstring injury although he has no plans to replace him. Butt was likely to have been on the bench anyway.
Rio Ferdinand’s eight-month suspension for failing to take a drug test does not end until September 20 and England are without two more central defenders because of injury — Arsenal’s Sol Campbell and Real Madrid’s Jonathan Woodgate. — Sapa-AP