Venables comes up smelling of

IF Terra Vehables were to, how shall we say, water the garden, it would assuredly come up roses. His reputation as a lucky" manager seems to know no bounds, and after riding their luck to a standstill in Saturday's penalty shoot out win over Spain, England got more bountiful good fortune yesterday - the man most likely to derail the English train, Juergen Klinsmann, is out of Wednesday's semi final.

Clearly there is a force with England now which goes beyond the norm. Klinsmann sustained a torn calf muscle in yesterday's bad tempered, 2-1, quarter final win over Croatia and, along with his striking partner Fredie Bobic, is almost certainly out of the semi final.

Booked for a feisty kick himself after seven minutes, a bitter Klinsmann limped from the war zone that was the Old Trafford pitch to talk to waiting journalists.

"In the opening minutes there were some bad fouls, especially, some tackles from behind on my right calf. The initial phase was very robust and I couldn't put any weight on the leg. Sprints were impossible, I couldn't even stand on the left, so I had to go off. The medical report said it is a torn muscle."

Asked whether this ruled him out of Wednesday's semi final, Klinsmann said: "As for me personally, the thing is I've no experience whatever with this type of injury. It's the first time I've torn a muscle. Conventional wisdom says it takes 10 days to heal. But I don't know for sure yet".

However, Germany's manager Berti Vogts was even more pessimistic. "England can look forward to their semi final because Bobic, with his dislocated shoulder, and Klinsmann, with his torn calf muscle, will probably not be fielded."

"It will be difficult without Juergen," he acknowledged. "He is our playmaker. On the pitch and off the pitch, he is our leader."

After another startlingly commanding performance by Matthias Sammer, that is a moot point, though undeniably Klinsmann was the man most likely to lead Germany to the trophy.

England have joined Germany as joint favourites to win Euro 96 at 15 to 8. But the Germans' worsening injury crisis leaves them seriously short of firepower. Even allowing for the hype generated within the host country, and the flood of bets on a relatively limited England side, the latest odds no longer seem that blinkered.

Over the next 48 hours, the hype is bound to make this one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sporting event in England's history. Saturday's 17.9 million audience was the second biggest for a sporting event, surpassed only by the World Cup semi final in Turin six years ago, when 25 million people tuned in.

Turin, and the penalty shoot out defeat, is but the latest of old scores the English have to settle, though the Germans could take Wembley and a Russian linesman from 1966 as a starting point. The hope, not a big hope, just a little one, is that the English tabloids and tans don't go back a bit further in history for a starting point.