Butt - a major plus for England. (Allsport)

By Mark Bradley, PA Sport Chief Soccer Writer, Japan

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When you have three world-class players and one of them is not fully fit, the other never quite reaches his peak and the third is out injured, World Cup success is nigh on impossible.

That, however, was exactly the situation facing Sven-Goran Eriksson out in the Far East over the past month.

In many ways, the real surprise was not the manner of England's World Cup exit, but the fact that they stayed in the tournament so long.

That they did so was not only down to the strong spirit in the squad, as well as the rich potential of many younger players, but to a core group of supposedly fringe players performing beyond any reasonable expectations.

Nicky Butt, Danny Mills and Trevor Sinclair all produced a string of impressive displays to confound those who believed they were no more than run-of-the-mill Premiership performers.

Asked which player impressed him most, Eriksson replied: "I must say Nicky Butt was fantastic. He was coming back from injury and played very well in all the games. He was very useful for us."

But truly world-class? Not quite.

Only one England player actually bridged the gap between good and great at this World Cup and that was Rio Ferdinand, who would be in any team of the tournament.

Otherwise, while Steven Gerrard was out injured, David Beckham and Michael Owen actually went the other way from great to mortal, however temporarily the transition should prove to be.

For Beckham was but a shadow of his normal inspirational self, casting off his 1998 demons with his gutsy penalty against Argentina but, in truth, achieving little else.

Of course, he has far more to give his country. It was not, after all, his fault that he was out injured for so long with his fractured foot and it was probably only his dedication that he regained his fitness in time.

However, that fitness was often merely a mirage as he laboured to make an impact approaching his normal peak.

"David can play better football than he did in this tournament but if you consider that he'd been away for seven weeks before, then I think he did very well," added Eriksson.

"When you have those sort of problems, you can't expect him to be 100 per cent fit like he was before Christmas."

The trouble was that England needed Beckham at his best, just as they required Owen to provide their cutting edge up front.

The Liverpool striker is a gifted player and scored twice in the finals, but he never quite set the world alight as he had started to do in 1998.

This was another stepping-stone on a richly promising career but, just like Beckham, Owen was not fully-fit against Brazil, which was a setback that England could never recover from.

They also badly missed Gerrard's commanding presence in midfield, especially his intelligence on the ball and passing ability over a range of distances.

"A fit Steven Gerrard should have helped a lot. He's one of the best midfielders you can find in the world today," admitted Eriksson.

Paul Scholes could also have bridged the gap to greatness but while he formed a tigerish central midfield duo with Butt, he never quite produced his best going forward and has now gone a year without an international goal.

The passing in midfield also broke down at times and England were too often sucked into resorting to the long-ball game when fortunes turned against them and the opposition dominated possession.

It was not really a lack of ability as such, although they did give the ball away far too much yet again. More a lack of nous and tactical flexibility.

"We changed small details but in the second-half against Sweden and Brazil, of course I take responsibility for the fact that we weren't as good as I'd hoped we would be in those two halves," admitted Eriksson.

That, however, is also ultimately down to the team's inexperience. For it should not be overlooked that this is a young squad with an average age of just 24 for their outfield players.

The 2002 World Cup was only ever realistically going to be a learning experience en route to the Euro 2004 finals, when this team should be properly judged.

Only a handful of players, namely Martin Keown, Teddy Sheringham and possibly David Seaman, will not still be around by then.

And not only Gerrard and Gary Neville, but also Alan Smith, David Dunn, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe, Ledley King and Paul Robinson are all set to earn well-deserved promotions over the next two years.

So amid the feelings of frustration, despondency and scenarios of what might have been, a sense of perspective is not only useful but obligatory.

This team may have struggled for one-half against Sweden, Nigeria and Brazil, but they otherwise held their own and came of age in their assured display against Argentina in Sapporo.

Their mark of inexperience was inconsistency but that will come in time and with patience.

This World Cup may still have been a golden opportunity wasted but it simply proved to be one step too far so early in a young team's development.