THERE IS a Tartan Army T-shirt in homage to those who have punctured English pretensions in big tournaments. Diego Maradona, Ronald Koeman and Marco van Basten are immortalised on it, along with Tomas Brolin and the ham-footed Phil Neville. If Croatia beat England again on Wednesday, Slaven Bilic is entitled to expect a complete range of kilts, bunnets and daggers in his honour.

Bilic coached the Croats to two victories over Steve McClaren's side during the qualifying for Euro 2008, or the non-qualifying in England's case. A cigarette-sucking, earring-wearing, guitar-toting former defender, his meticulous preparation belies the bohemian image. Now, on the evening before his 40th birthday, he has the opportunity to record a hat-trick that could spread doubt and panic through the England ranks in the first major test of Fabio Capello's management.

Defeat for Capello would not, at this early stage, be tantamount to the whole World Cup campaign, or the Italian's £6.5m-a-year appointment, going up in smoke. But given the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the England team after an unconvincing start to the new era, with the top players perceived as over-paid and under-committed, another chastening night in Zagreb would provoke renewed breast-beating about the poverty of the national side at a time when the Premier League is awash with foreign cash and talent.

The uncomfortable reality for the one-time AC Milan and Real Madrid coach – who, remember, had never managed an international team in a competitive game until last night's match against Andorra in Barcelona – is that even if England do rise above the level of recent displays, Bilic's team should provide as stern a challenge as any this side of the 2010 finals. Croatia lie fifth in FIFA's world rankings, above Argentina and Brazil and 10 places ahead of England. They won all three group fixtures in the European finals before losing on penalties to Turkey in a quarter-final they came within seconds of winning.

Bilic, who is inevitably being linked with the managerial vacancy at West Ham, for whom he played, sees Luka Modric as second only among modern playmakers to Kaka, and Modric's form for Tottenham against Chelsea suggested his opinion may not be unduly partial. The absence of Portsmouth's Niko Kranjcar and Arsenal's Eduardo deprives Croatia of skilled attackers, yet quality technique runs through the squad. Take Modric's new club colleague from Manchester City; Vedran Corluka. Tall for a full-back and without much pace, he is blessed with precision and vision that Capello's equivalents cannot match.

An Anglophile whose son is a Chelsea fanatic, Bilic speaks German and Italian as well as English. While reputed to earn just £100,000 a year, the sort of money that many of the England side make in a week, he certainly had the measure of McClaren, although his tussle with Sven– Goran Eriksson's successor resembled a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

When they tangled in Zagreb two years ago, on the night Gary Neville's back-pass bobbled over goalkeeper Paul Robinson's boot for a farcical own goal, McClaren made a tactical U-turn to play a 3-5-2 formation. In a Wembley deluge last autumn, when England needed only a draw to qualify with the Croats, he went to 4-1-4-1. In the final analysis, however, Croatia's superior quality and team ethic would probably have prevailed whatever system they had faced.


Facing English reporters who probed him with elaborate questions for an explanation of the failure to reach Euro 2008, Bilic declared with refreshing bluntness: "Wake up! We were simply the better team." Perhaps with an eye to future employment prospects, he added that a major tournament without England was not the same (one of the few things he got wrong), going on to venture the idea that if he were England manager his ambition would be to win the World Cup, "because they're good enough" (and there's another).

Capello appears intent on 4-3-2-1, a set-up designed to smother Modric and company while retaining the capacity to break in support of the front-runner. With the exception of Gareth Barry there are no clear candidates to play as a holding midfielder. Owen Hargreaves and Michael Carrick are unavailable, so a less disciplined player, such as Jermaine Jenas, may be handed the responsibility.

Similarly, Steven Gerrard's groin operation has deprived Capello of a natural candidate to play off the lone striker. One of the berths will go to the under-achieving Wayne Rooney, with Joe Cole a strong possibility for the other. As for the target man, conventional wisdom favours Jermain Defoe, whose 5ft 7in frame and five England goals make him a less than obvious choice, despite a bright start to the season at Portsmouth.

Capello has contentiously left Pompey's Peter Crouch, West Ham's Dean Ashton and Aston Villa's Ashley Young at home, and resisted those who believe the benefit of Michael Owen's penalty-box prowess outweighs his conditioning problems. He has also shown a faith in Defoe, and Theo Walcott, 19, which their international records do not justify.

If England avoid their customary fate against Croatia, his selections will be interpreted as strong leadership and vindication of the fortune he earns. Should they backfire and allow Bilic to cement his iconic status among certain Scots, against the coach he calls "better than Ferguson, Mourinho or Lippi", Capello's judgments may be seen as expensive in more ways than one.