Despite taking an early lead, England struggled to create openings throughout the match and retreated into their shell the further the game went on, leaving Eriksson looking for a vastlyimproved performance against Trinidad and Tobago.

"I hope so." he said. "You always try to do better but I'm happy today. We can play much better but I'm happy.

We started the tournament with three points and it's very important."

The heat in Frankfurt appeared to take a heavy toll on England's players, and the South Americans coped better and looked fitter than Eriksson's men in the latter stages.

"Maybe we suffered a lot. I think this was a real hot, hot day and I think that knocked us in the second half, " Eriksson added." But most important was the result today, we were suffering but it's a very good start."

Eriksson added that the decision to take Michael Owen off early in the second half, to be replaced by Stewart Downing, was purely tactical. But he denied that Owen's substitution caused England's performance to fade. "No, I think we lost rhythm, I think we started the second half poorly, " he said.

David Beckham also blamed England's fading performance on the heat rather than the manager's decision to take off Owen.

"You don't realise how hot it was out there, " the team captain said. "We were good at times but we gave away the ball too much. But it was hot and we got what we wanted. That was a good start and we have the three points.

"The performance could be better but we will work on that. We set out to get the three points and we did that.

We let them pass the ball around too much.

"But we were exhausted.

We can put it down to that because we are usually strong and our fitness levels are high."