Yesterday morning the papers were waving the flags again in celebration of a victory whose significance they had been responsible

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Yesterday morning the papers were waving the flags again in celebration of a victory whose significance they had been responsible for creating. And where there is none, it must be generated, and expressed in its own special language: the narrow-column lexicography of rage, fury, snub, lash, quit, flop, blast, storm and shame.In Hoddle, the tabloids found a suitable target - a prickly character unprepared to contemplate the exposure of his own flaws. The synergy of newspaper and television interests depends for its profits on the endlessly renewable dynamic vitality of its chosen narratives: on constant bickering between members of the royal family, on embarrassing gaffes by politicians, on internecine war between footballers and their managers If conflict exists, it must be exposed. On a comparatively trivial level they would have received their payback for Hoddle's refusal to come clean over various team matters during the World Cup, for his admirable silence over the Gascoigne affair followed by the contemptible revelations of his published diary, and for various other slights, real or imaginary.Much more seriously, the final humiliation of Hoddle would have reconfirmed the power of a section of the media - meaning the vertically integrated, cross-collateralised business interests of a few empires - to regulate the affairs of the nation.

Only Kieron Dyer, playing in front of his home crowd, seemed to belong on the same pitch as the Czechs, an odd phenomenon since the Ipswich midfielder was the only non-Premier League player in England's starting line-up.So before the kick-off at Wembley on Wednesday night there was the sense of being present at an event which might have turned into a public execution, and that such an outcome would have suited some people very well. The visitors' wit and imagination - symbolised by the verve of Milan Pacenda and the drive of the twins Tomas and Lukas Dosek, who combined to create the only goal of the match - had put the young Englishmen to shame. "Another desperate piece of man-management by Hoddle," said the Sun, whose columnist came to a truly mindbending conclusion: "If Glenn Hoddle's public relations were like his passing used to be then he would be a great England coach."As if that wasn't enough of a wake-up call on the morning of the match, there was also a minor but nevertheless nagging hangover from the previous evening's game at Portman Road where Hoddle's England Under-21 side, coached by Peter Taylor, had lost to their Czech equivalents in front of 14,000 mostly school-age fans. "You're a coward, Hoddle" was the headline above a story outlining the resentment of the Manchester United striker Andy Cole at Hoddle's recently published explanation for leaving him out of the squad.Elsewhere Hoddle was criticised for leaving Gareth Southgate on the bench, after the Aston Villa player had hurried back from doing duty at the birth of his first child, the suggestion being that Southgate's dash should guarantee him exemption from the coach's wish to use the opportunity to give a chance to players on the fringe of the squad. And this was when he made the fateful comment: "I might learn a lot if the game doesn't go our way."The price for refusing to come up with the goods was apparent in the next morning's papers. Readers of the Sun didn't even need to turn to the back page, where the headlines were scathing enough: "`I'm not too excited by this match tonight" - If that's how you feel, Glenn, how the hell do you expect the players and supporters to react?" But on page one another story attacked the England coach in far more damaging terms. Yet how can any player put on an England shirt without feeling that he is facing a trial? The ability to cope with such a test is what separates the true international players from the also-rans.This was when, looking for something to put in their stories, the journalists tried unsuccessfully to get Hoddle to exaggerate the significance of the match.

"They can't do that if they feel they're on trial," he claimed. The new players, he said, were not to feel that they were on trial; yet in the next breath he was saying that the match offered "a chance for them to stake a claim for the Poland game" - England's next competitive fixture, in March. His manner was terse and suspicious; his words were defensive and unenlightening, sometimes contradictory. But there was already a wary note in Hoddle's voice as he tried to soothe the sting out of the matter by indicating that he felt a measure of progress had been made in Beckham's behaviour "I'll be talking to David about that privately," he said. "I've seen good performances from him since the World Cup, and controlled performances, and there's still an element in him that could be improved, but he's working on it, and that's the most important thing."It wasn't enough, however, and the tendentious follow-up question came, asking if it was now time to leave Beckham alone to get on with his football, he refused to be drawn into the affirmative reply that would have resulted in a "Hod says hands off Becks" back-page splash.Still, there was time for one last try Had Beckham become a marked man? "No But whether he is or not, it's immaterial. David's got to deal with it."The journalists left the press conference feeling disappointed.