Michael Owen has been greeted here like Michael Jackson and tonight the 18-year-old Liverpool striker will have an opportunity to put England's poor record in Sweden straight. The last time England beat the Swedes on their own soil the Beatles, along with their footballing equivalent, George Best, had barely gone into orbit.

Not that the present England side will care much about 1965 and all that as they begin qualification for the 2000 European Championship. Glenn Hoddle is far keener to revive the spirit of his team's progress to the 1998 World Cup, which owed much to the strength of England's performances in potentially difficult away matches.

If England can reproduce the patience and discipline they showed in Georgia, Poland and Italy then a first win in Sweden for 33 years will be well within their grasp.

Alan Shearer, who missed the qualifiers in Tbilisi and Rome but played superbly in Chorzow, will captain the team and stands to benefit if the attention devoted to Owen off the pitch is shared by Tommy Soderberg's defenders.

Victory for England would not only give an immediate boost to their chances of making the European Championship in Holland and Belgium, it would salve any disappointment lingering on after the second-round World Cup defeat by Argentina. And it would also provide some much-needed rationality after a singularly bizarre build-up.

Hoddle's stock with the media, though not with the country, has never been so low after the publication of World Cup memoirs which left reporters feeling they had been led up a muddy garden path. Yesterday the tortuous tale took a further twist when Hoddle reported that Tony Adams, who represents half the current membership of England's Book of the Month Club, was doubtful for tonight's game with "a tweaked ankle ligament". Such is the England coach's record on being open about injuries that the statement was greeted with the incredulity once accorded to any sentence by Richard Nixon that began with the words "Believe me".

"You like to keep the opposition guessing and waiting," said one scribe. "Is Adams really injured?"

"I'm not even going to bother to answer that," Hoddle replied.

Either way Adams will have a fitness test today and should he have to drop out the obvious solution would be to move Gareth Southgate to the middle of the back three and bring in Martin Keown on the right.

Losing Adams from the defence, having already been denied the midfield services of the suspended David Beckham and the injured David Batty and Nicky Butt, would further test the depth of Hoddle's squad. Liverpool's Jamie Redknapp is expected to fill the midfield vacancy.

Everything, for the moment, comes back to Owen. Hoddle is worried that a bandwagon now losing control will overturn at the first bend.

"It's impossible for any player, especially if he's a goalscorer, to go through the season scoring left, right and centre," the England coach warned yesterday.

"Every player will have a dip in form, and when Michael has a dip everyone will say, `Oh, something's happened to him'. That's unfair because there has never been a player who has gone through a season getting nine out of 10 in every single game."

A victory for Hoddle's team now, whoever scores, would establish them as favourites to win Group Five, for neither the Bulgarians nor the Poles, whom England do not play until March, would fancy having to win in Sweden to stay in touch.

Certainly Sweden look beatable. A thigh injury has deprived their attack of Kennet Andersson and their defence looks one-paced. The principal danger could come from Par Zetterberg on the right and much will depend on Paul Ince curbing the influence in midfield of Stefan Schwarz.

Yet all could turn on the effect of one of yesterday's local headlines: "Shearer in Owen's shadow". Dangerous words indeed, especially at the end of a week which began with Shearer glaring back down the pitch at St James' Park as the teenager went through Newcastle's defence as if it wasn't there. Sweden could pay for that result.

Goals by Liverpool's Jamie Carragher and West Ham's Frank Lampard, with a late penalty, gave England a 2-0 victory over Sweden in yesterday's European Under-21 qualifier in Sundsrvaal.

Sweden (4-4-2): (probable) Hedman; Nilsson, P Andersson, Bjorklund, Kaamark; Zetterberg, Schwarz, Mjallby, Ljungberg; Larsson, Pettersson.

England (3-5-2): (probable) Seaman; Southgate, Adams (or Keown), Campbell; Anderton, Redknapp, Ince, Scholes, Le Saux; Shearer, Owen.

Referee: P Collina (Italy).