ENGLAND needed only a tie at Wembley to make next year’s European Championship. The English couldn’t do it, losing to Croatia 3-2 Wednesday.

“It’s a summer without seeing the flags out in the streets and seeing the atmosphere around England and that’s going to be devastating for the country,” said David Beckham, who now plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy in U.S. Major League Soccer.

“We all know there are more important things than football in the world, but for us not to qualify for a competition it’s a huge, huge thing.”

Croatia won on a 77th-minute goal by substitute Mladen Petric.

The English played without injured stars John Terry, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen and trailed 2-0 after only 14 minutes. Goalkeeper Scott Carson failed to get his hands on an eighth-minute shot by Niko Kranjcar, giving Croatia the lead. Carson started over Paul Robinson while McClaren dropped Beckham to the bench.

Ivica Olic added the second goal and England trailed 2-0 by the time Beckham came on for the second half. England was awarded a dubious penalty kick and Frank Lampard converted. Beckham’s expertly timed cross allowed Peter Crouch to tie it in the 65th minute.

Even though Russia was on the way to a 1-0 victory over Andorra, the scores at that stage gave England the edge. But Petric scored with a 30-meter shot to silence the England fans.

Russia, Sweden, Turkey and Portugal advanced to complete the 16-team field for the tournament in Austria and Switzerland.

Sweden and Turkey qualified with victories in their final games, and Portugal made it with a 0-0 tie with Finland. Russia beat Andorra 1-0 and took advantage of England’s loss to Croatia.

Already in the tournament were: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, defending champion Greece, World Cup champion Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.

The draw for the four groups is Dec. 2 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Spain finished at the top of the group by beating Northern Ireland 1-0.

Turkey defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 off a 43rd-minute goal by Nihat Kahveci in Istanbul. The 2002 World Cup semifinalists advance along with Greece, which finished at the top of Group C after winning at Hungary 2-1. Greece goes to Euro 2008 with the best qualifying record of 10 victories, one loss and one tie.

Turkey’s narrow victory was enough to edge Norway, which won at Malta 4-1 helped by a first-half hat trick by Steffen Iversen. (SD-Agencies)