Michael Owen maintained Sven-Goran Eriksson's side simply played as well as they had to in beating Wales and would have performed much better against Brazil or Argentina.
Owen: "We can compete at the top level, no problem. It's easy to go on one or two games or whatever. But the better the opposition are, the better that the best players always play. Wales played very well and we played well without playing at our best. But I'm sure that if we were 2-0 down from a first leg, you'd have seen more attacking, more goals and more everything."
That's the way Michael ... always the optimist. He's starting to think like a Geordie already.