The opening goal came from a corner which Seaman waved a hand at as it curled over him inside the far top corner. England equalised through Beckham before the visitors took the lead again. This time it was Gerrard's error in midfield that gave them the opportunity, and Seaman was unsighted when the low shot from the edge of the box was struck.

Campbell and Cole didn't do too bad, although Sol's distribution let him down a few times including when he passed his clearance to an opposition player for their second goal. Ashley benefited from the presence of another left back in front of him (Wayne Bridge) and got forward quite a lot. At the end of the day, England had plenty of possession and could have scored more. But at the other end to Seaman, the Macedonia goalie put in a man-of-the-match display.

Meanwhile France continued to try to emulate Arsenal, as Henry hit 2 and Wiltord another in a 4-0 win over Malta. Wiltord set up Henry's first, and Henry set up his Arsenal teammate's goal when his hat-trick effort came back off the woodwork for a tap-in. In between these, Henry had headed in a second.

Somewhat topically (given all the "are Arsenal better than Real?" talk) Zinedine Zidane managed to hit the crossbar when he only had the white line to beat.

Vieira played too but isn't mentioned in the reports I've seen. Which means he didn't score, but didn't miss a sitter either.

And, lest we forget, Francis Jeffers continued his fantastic England record with a hattrick as the U21s beat Macedonia 3-1 last night. Real quality "fox-in-the-box" stuff it was too, although it has to be said that the Macedonian youngsters were a pale shadow of their senior compatriots. Jeffers now has 12 goals in 12 games for the U21s, including 2 hattricks and 5 in the last 2 games.