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In any football tournament, you may have under-achievers – those teams that don’t produce on the pitch what they should do on paper – and over-achievers – those that produce far more than people thought they would. In the qualifying phase of the Euro 2008 championship, two countries do indeed fit this description: England and Northern Ireland.

England came out of a hugely disappointing World Cup traumatised by poor displays and internal problems, with Swedish coach Sven-Goran Eriksson leaving to be replaced, controversially, by his right-hand man, Steve McClaren. It’s the Football Association (FA) that chooses the national coach, and their choice was far from consensual. In fact, the FA’s main man was Brazilian Felipe Scolari, then and currently Portugal coach, but he got cold feet and fled.

Former Middlesbrough manager and assistant to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, McClaren had had little direct success at club level, and as assistant again was inextricably linked to the very unpopular (at the end of his term) Eriksson at international level. After only seven months as coach of England, results and performances have so far seemed to confirm initial misgivings.

Before Saturday’s match in Israel, England had gone four games without winning, and had scored in only one (a 1-1 draw in a friendly with Holland) – equalling a record set in 1981 under the recently deceased Ron Greenwood. Then in Tel Aviv, they played so poorly that many of the thousands of English fans that follow the national team around the world were chanting "what a load of rubbish!" and "you don't know what you're doing!" well before the end.

There were rumours of arguments in the changing room after the game, with striker Wayne Rooney – who hasn’t scored for England in competitive games since Euro 2004 (!) – being openly criticised by McClaren and then throwing a tantrum.

The English fans and media, especially the tabloids, are becoming increasingly critical of not just McClaren but also of what they, and many fans, see as lazy, rich players who are not making the required effort when they pull on the famous white shirt.

Before Wednesday’s game against Andorra, McClaren said: "We all know what we have to do, the players know what they've got to do, they know the responsibility they've got." After 45 minutes of terrible football once again, and a 0-0 scoreline, England left the field at half-time to a chorus of boos from the thousands of English fans who had travelled to Barcelona, and although they finally won 3-0, helped by two superb goals from Steven Gerrard, it was hardly a fantastic result; Andorra are, after all, 163rd in the FIFA rankings, while England are 6th.

Many would like to see McClaren out, but the facts are that it would cost the FA around £2.5 million in compensation payments, that a change might be counter-productive and that it would be difficult to find a replacement at this time; it’s unlikely that he’ll be sacked, therefore … yet. He will be facing increasing pressure from all directions, though, and walking out of press conferences after just two minutes, as he did after the Andorra game, will not help him.

Meanwhile, his opposite number for Northern Ireland, Lawrie Sanchez, is having a wonderful time. After losing 0-3 to Iceland in the first group game, the European minnows have produced some excellent results, including a 3-2 win over Spain, a 0-0 draw in Denmark and on Wednesday a 2-1 home defeat of powerful Sweden, with two goals from David Healy. Suddenly, as if by magic, they are top of Group F, one point ahead of Sweden and four ahead of Spain, although they’ve played one game more. The Northern Ireland squad is full of unknown or only half-known players working for the coach, for each other and for pride.

Some of England’s players might like to take an embarrassed look … and learn something.

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