Let one thing be said and said loud and clear - England played very, very well. Let a second thing be said, if a little less loudly - if Italy find themselves anxiously awaiting today's draw for the play-offs, then they have only themselves to blame.

Saturday night's 0-0 World Cup qualifying draw between Italy and England at the Olympic Stadium in Rome was a match destined to be recalled for a long time and not just because it saw England win their place in France '98 while sending Italy into the uncertainty of the play-offs. This might not have been a game of spectacular technical excellence, nor a festival of open, attacking soccer - few such crunch qualifiers are - but it was a match that may well have marked an important step in English soccer's slow and difficult climb back to the very top level of the world game.

England came to the Olympic Stadium to do a job and did it with surprising assurance, calm and control in an environment that was anything but friendly. Most neutral observers would probably agree that if any side deserved to win on Saturday, it was England who had at least two clear first half chances through Paul Ince and David Beckham, not to mention the post hit by Ian Wright in injury time.

Italy came to the Olympic Stadium, having thrown away a glorious Group start with that 1-0 win at Wembley by drawing away to both Poland and Georgia. Italy created their own mountain to climb and, faced with an English side disciplined enough to give nothing away in defence, never really threatened to pull it off.

It was not co-incidental that the only real Italian chance came in injury time when Christian Vieri headed narrowly wide following a good cross from Alessandro Del Piero. Yet, frankly, an injury time Italian winner would not have been merited.

Italian coach Cesare Maldini was both sporting and astute when he said yesterday morning:

"England lined out very well, with five men across the middle of the park. Then they have tremendous physical presence in midfield with players like Ince and Batty, while they have technically gifted players such as Beckham and Sheringham. This is an excellent mix, very, very good"

Maldini was, however, desperately scratching around for crumbs of comfort when saying of his own side's failure to win the Group:

"Failure? I don't consider our Group performances a failure. We didn't qualify so it's a failure, that's true . . . but if you look closely you'll see that we didn't lose to anybody, no one scored even a goal against us and yet, and this is incredible, here we are wondering who were are going to get in a play-off game.

"This is a good England team but we have no reason to reproach ourselves. We met them twice and we took four points from them . . . Our away games proved crucial. When we drew 0-0 away to a highly motivated Poland, we felt we'd got a very good result. If our rivals then went to Poland after us and got a better result, well, hats off to them."

Hats off, indeed. Maldini did, however, suggest that his side had been penalised by a series of negative factors - the absence of the injured Ciro Ferrara and the suspended Roberto Di Matteo, the loss of his son Paolo after half an hour and the sending-off of Angelo Di Livio.

It is arguable, however, that Italy were more severely penalised by Maldini's surprise decision to play a three-man attack led by big man Christian Vieri and Filippo Inzaghi with Chelsea's Gianfranco Zola playing just behind them. This seemed like a rare tactical blunder in that it left Italy with an exposed, de facto two man midfield of Dino Baggio and Demetrio Albertini while it also dropped Zola back behind the front line where he might have done more damage. Worse still, Inzaghi, the surprise element, achieved as little here as he had done for Juventus in that 3-2 Champions League loss to Manchester United two weeks ago.

The story of the match is soon told. Apart from an initial shakey 10 minutes, the five-man English midfield simply ran the match as it wished. While a variety of different Italian strikers (Inzaghi, Zola, Vieri, Del Piero, Chiesa) struggled for space and room and fed off a poor service, England did all the basics more than correctly even finding time to move forward with occasional menace. Only a brilliant save by Angelo Peruzzi and a shameful miss by the otherwise excellent Beckham deprived England of a deserved 10 half-time lead.

In the second half, the music was little changed and when England survived a bright opening quarter hour, then Italian frustration became manifest when first Alessandro Costacurta picked up a yellow card for verbal dissent and then later Angelo Di Livio was sent off for a wild tackle on Sol Campbell.

The most dramatic action of the match was saved for injury time when England, on the counter attack against a 10-man Italy, seemed certain to score after Ian Wright got past Peruzzi. From a narrow angle, however, Wright hit the post. In almost the next action Del Piero sent over a splendid cross which Vieri met full on, only to head narrowly high and wide.

Speaking after the game, Paolo Maldini, son of coach Cesare Maldini, was as sporting as his father, calling England a "very, very good team" and the best in the group. However, when he was asked by one English colleague if England were "a more sophisticated team now", Maldini misunderstood the question: "England? More sophisticated than Italy? They qualified but they're not more sophisticated than Italy."