European qualifiers Greatest day for English soccer. And England did not even play. Ozren Podnar reports... What a wonderful Saturday for English soccer! England did not play, though, but Israel did, and Macedonia too. Not only one result went England's way on that glorious day, but two! Israel achieved the unimaginable feat of beating Russia by 2-1, when even a draw seemed unassailable; an hour later, an unbeaten Croatia finally succumbed to lowly Macedonia, who so rarely win a game at home (four in the last seven years, to be precise). Any of these unlikely scores would have saved the Three Lions from the instant ignominy of elimination from the forthcoming Euros. In the end, both results came out just as if Steve McClaren himself had designed them.