Devastated England players at the whistle (Allsport)

By PA Sport staff

Click here to place your World Cup bets!
Click here for England team section
Click here for teams index
Click here for latest World Cup headlines
Click here for World Cup photo gallery
Click here for World Cup Bettingzone

England legends Jack Charlton and Sir Tom Finney warned the rest of world that it had better watch out for the country in the coming years.

Despite bowing out of the World Cup at the quarter-final stage following a 2-1 defeat to Brazil in Shizuoka, both men chose to look on the bright side.

Michael Owen had given England a 23rd-minute lead but Rivaldo equalised deep into first half injury-time before Ronaldinho caught goalkeeper David Seaman off-guard with the winning free-kick five minutes after the interval.

World Cup-winning hero of 1966 Charlton was bitterly disappointed with the result and although he admitted the next tournament cannot quick enough, he believes that next time they can go all the way and bring the trophy back home again.

"Nobody's bothered about bouncing back now," Charlton told PA Sport. "We've got another two whole seasons without any big competitions and we have got time to prepare for the European Championships in Portugal.

"The players will be more experienced and have played more games. You've always got competitions to look forward to but we've got another four years before we get the chance to win a World Cup in Germany.

"By that time maybe we will be able to go all the way and win it. We've done okay to get to where we got and come through the group we did, beating Argentina, and we've had all those ups and one down today which has put us out.

"I feel sorry for that lads. The expectation here was tremendous and I've lost my voice yelling at the bloody TV."

Former Preston North End winger Finney was also disappointed to see the back of England - but he predicts that they will now be one of the favourites to win future European Championships and World Cups because of the players they possess.

"They have a good young side and it has certainly been a wonderful experience to play against a side like that at that stage in the World Cup finals," he added.

"I thought overall and even with 11 men against 10 that Brazil were the better side. They were more experienced and used the ball a lot better.

"But England did extremely well really because they were in a tough group, the hardest in the World Cup, and not many people gave them a chance of qualifying.

"It will be an experience and they will learn from that. Eriksson has people like Steven Gerrard to come back in and a lot of good young players are coming through so we can be confident in the future."

Charlton said England were unfortunate not to be going through to the semi-final this time as everything seemed to go the way of the South Americans - especially Ronaldinho's freak free-kick.

"When then they scored just after the break David Seaman was perhaps still feeling the knock on his back he got near the end of the first half," he added.

"But that effort was one in a million. He never attempted to shoot from there. It could have gone anywhere, but it just crept in and surprised Seaman."