FABIO CAPELLO reacted with a sense of relief after England avoided being thrust into a daunting section alongside Portugal and the Netherlands and were instead drawn in Group D for next summer’s European Championship, with meetings against France, Sweden and the hosts Ukraine ahead.

England, who are to be based in the Polish city of Krakow, will play their first three games in the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kiev and will have to travel over 4,000 miles in Group D alone. Should they finish as runners-up in the section then they would spend the entire tournament playing in Ukraine, with trips to and from their base nearing some 8,000 miles.

The three other sides in the group will be based in Ukraine but Capello will not switch from Krakow, with the manager merely relieved to have avoided the tournament’s most formidable group.

“There was a terrible moment while I waited for us to be drawn because Group B was really strong,” said Capello, who was content to see Germany included instead alongside the Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark. “I was happy after we got past that, Groups A and C were difficult, but Group B was the strongest. All the games will be difficult but I know all the teams we will play against. We played France in a friendly and they are difficult to play against and are a really good team.

“We beat Sweden recently but they have good organisation. And I know Ukraine because we played them in qualifying for the World Cup. But all the games in this tournament will be difficult because the levels of the teams will be very high. We will try to win it. We will try. But I think it will be a really tough tournament. Every game will be difficult because every team can beat the others.”

While England lost their opening group game to France at Euro 2004, courtesy of two late goals from Zinedine Zidane, it will be memories of Les Bleus’ 2-1 friendly victory at Wembley last November that will trouble Capello as he prepares to lead the national team into his last tournament. The France coach, Laurent Blanc, claimed England should be considered “favourites” for the group and admitted the fixture between the sides would be awkward. “It is always complicated playing England,” he said. “The matches are competitive and there is a lot of danger.”

Add to that the reality that England have never beaten Sweden in a competitive game and that one of Capello’s two competitive defeats as manager came against Ukraine and the group appears more troublesome.

“I don’t think you saw the real Sweden in the friendly game at Wembley last month,” said Hamren. “I hope not anyway. They were better than us then, so we will have to do better next summer.”

The logistics of the tournament pose England problems, though Capello brushed off suggestions that an alternative base in Ukraine might be pursued. “It’s normal, the travelling,” he said. “When we play qualifying games, we arrive the day before from England. I think Krakow to Donetsk is shorter than some of the journeys we made.”