Group Seven Macedonia 1 England 2Within moments loutish Macedonia fans had reduced a flag of St George to cinders, but England themselves are a slow burn.

They never caught fire, but they smouldered just enough to win on Saturday. England have played half a dozen games in Group Seven and been behind in four of them. They went on to win three of those four.

Although Sven-Goran Eriksson's team were 1-0 behind at the interval in Skopje, the coach's changes were not searingly original. They never are. His thinking rattles around the variations on 4-4-2. At half-time he brought on Emile Heskey and reintroduced his diamond system, with Wayne Rooney just behind a pair of forwards.

Eriksson took a guarded pleasure in his boldness: "There are not many teams who play two up front with a striker in the hole. Often they have an offensive midfielder in that hole, but you saw many times today that Rooney can do it."

The Everton teenager was often a peripheral figure but, at 17, he became England's youngest goal scorer by flaunting, for a split second, the technique and instinctiveness that make him such a prodigy. The forceful Heskey headed down David Beckham's cross perfectly in the 53rd minute and Rooney, cracking a shot first time before the goalkeeper had readied himself, fired low into the net.

After 63 minutes the Liverpool striker leapt for another Beckham delivery and caused such uproar, even once the ball had cleared him, that the overwrought substitute Aguinaldo Braga brought down John Terry.

Beckham smashed the penalty low into the left corner of the net, and the captain has scored in all five appearances he has made in these qualifiers.

England were inviting an accident and when the otherwise excellent Sol Campbell tried to stoop to head a low Vlatko Grozdanovski cross in the 28th minute the ball squirmed past him. Goran Pandev's attempt was deflected by Terry, but the former Barnsley striker Georgi Hristov drove home off the legs of David James.

Ashley Cole again struggled when pinned down in defence and will be glad his nearest team-mate opened brightly, even if he waned later. "During the last two years Owen Hargreaves has grown up and he is a regular at Bayern Munich," said Eriksson approvingly. The coach was not horror-struck by the early efforts of the remainder of the line-up. "I think we controlled the last part of the first half," he commented accurately.

FYR MACEDONIA: Milosevski, Stavrevski, Mitreski, Stojanovski, Simulikoski, Grozdanovski (Braga 56), Trajanov, Pandev (Gjuzelov 48), Sakiri, Naumoski, Hristov (Dimitrovski 88). Subs Not Used: Nikoloski, Kapinkovski, Georgievski, Kumbev. Booked: Naumoski, Braga, Hristov, Sakiri. Goals: Hristov 28.

ENGLAND: James, Gary Neville, Terry, Campbell, Ashley Cole, Beckham, Lampard (Heskey 46), Butt, Hargreaves, Owen (Dyer 86), Rooney (Phil Neville 74). Subs Not Used: Robinson, Upson, Bridge, Joe Cole. Booked: Campbell, Beckham. Goals: Rooney 53, Beckham 63 pen.

Referee: F De Bleeckere (Belgium).

PREVIOUS RESULTS

Sept 7th, 2002: Turkey 3 Slovakia 0. Sept 8th: Liechtenstein 1 Macedonia 1. Oct 12th: Slovakia 1 England 2; Macedonia 1 Turkey 2. Oct 16th: Turkey 5 Liechtenstein 0; England 2 Macedonia 2. Mar 29th, 2003: Liechtenstein 0 England 2; Macedonia 0 Slovakia 2. Apr 2nd: England 2 Turkey 0; Slovakia 4 Liechtenstein 0. June 7th: FYR Macedonia 3 Liechtenstein 1; Slovakia 0 Turkey 1. June 11th: England 2 Slovakia 1; Turkey 3 FYR Macedonia 2.

REMAINING MATCHES

Wednesday: England v Liechtenstein; Slovakia v Macedonia. Oct 11th: Turkey v England; Liechtenstein v Slovakia.

Group Seven

P W D L F A Pts

Turkey 7 6 0 1 17 5 18

England 6 5 1 0 12 5 16

Slovakia 6 2 0 4 8 8 6

FYR Macedonia 7 1 2 4 10 13 5

Liechtenstein 6 0 1 5 2 18 1

SATURDAY

Macedonia(1) 1 England(0) 2 Hristov 28 Rooney 53 Beckham 63 (pen) ... Att: 20,500

Liechtenstein(0) 0 Turkey(2) 3 Metin 14 Buruk 41 Sukur 50 ... Att: 3,548