Mills learns to play percentage game

This was not how qualification from the Group of Death was supposed to be. For six months, the respective merits of Argentina, Sweden and Nigeria have taxed the minds of the football public. Then, on a hazy afternoon in this unlovely industrial city, came a suffocating goalless draw and a terrible anti-climax.

"When," asked a foreign journalist in bewilderment, "did the English learn to play like the Italians?" When they employed a coach with a significant grounding in the tactical jungle of Serie A.

The England fans who had journeyed south from Sapporo, negotiated the Tokyo subway, found accommodation and paid good yen for their tickets might consider suing both teams for fraud. England have qualified, second in the group, and to add to their joys Argentina are on the way home. Ends justify the means. But was enduring a somnolent afternoon, in which England gained the point that guaranteed them a place in the last 16, really worth all the effort?

It was, but England are in danger of becoming the mirror image of their coach, absorbing questions and giving very little in the way of answers.

Sven Goran Eriksson stressed the significance of the heat in dictating the downbeat tempo of the match and the players confirmed the energy-sapping quality of the humidity. But conditions did not entirely excuse the passivity of the performances laid out before the mass of English yeomen and a small knot of drum-beating Nigerians perched high in the corner beside the redundant scoreboard.

With Nigeria barely breaking into a trot, England seemed content to conserve what they had, in terms of energy and position. Every match has to be judged against the base rate of the second-half shambles against Sweden.

Eriksson has drilled his team in the basics, keeping shape, keeping possession, counter-attacking in brief but emphatic spurts and otherwise throttling the midfield with a moveable threesome just as the Swedes did so effectively in that opening game.

Whenever England lose the ball, Emile Heskey drops back to cover, while a combination of Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Trevor Sinclair close down the space in front of the defence. Not since Glenn Hoddle laid out his team to claim a 0-0 draw in Rome, sealing qualification for the last world cup, have England displayed such tactical discipline.

No figure symbolises the shackling of English adventure more completely than Danny Mills. Eriksson likes Mills for his verve and uncomplicated physicality, for his very Englishness. Mills, in return, is learning Eriksson's self-control, a quality, he admitted last week, which comes hard when the opposition – not the Nigerians or the Swedes – are elbowing you in the stomach and spitting in your face. Mills' instinct since his days as a wing-back for Charlton has been to run straight and hard at the opposition. It is still his natural impulse now.

Yet playing the percentages, like a snooker player calculating a safety shot, timing his runs to maximum effect, making sure that his defensive duties are covered, these are the requirements of an international full-back. And Mills is doing his duty, trying so hard to please.

Against Denmark in Niigata on Saturday, the duel between the much maligned Leeds full-back and Jesper Gronkjaer of Chelsea promises to be a decisive area of confrontation.

"I presume Denmark will play in a similar style to Sweden," said Mills. "They'll be very organised, but the advantage is that we'll know how they will be play."

In his way, Mills, pilloried for his defensive lapse against Sweden, has epitomised England 2002. He has barely put a foot out of place in the last two matches, which is a credit to his strength of character and, whatever happens to England now, he will emerge from the tournament with his confidence enhanced. It just cannot be easy undergoing such a public education.