Steve McLaren's 15-month tenure as England head coach - the briefest of any full-time England coach - came to an abrupt end on Thursday morning (GMT) after England's disastrous exit from the Euro 2008 Championship.
In the aftermath of England's 3-2 defeat by Croatia, the Football Association held an emergency board meeting the morning after and made an unanimous decision to terminate the contract of McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables with immediate effect.
The FA's chief executive Brian Barwick admitted McClaren's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 cost him his job.
'It was a board decision - it was unanimous." he said.
"I spoke to Steve this morning - we get on very well with him. I've had many grown-up conversations and had another one with him this morning - and I can only wish him well.
But in the end, not qualifying for Euro 2008 comes up short. Qualification for a major tournament is probably a minimum requirement." he added.
McLaren took over as manager of England after the departure of Sven Goran Eriksson on August 1st 2006 to very little public backing. He had been involved with the England setup for many years as assistant coach prior to his appointment as head coach and many felt that he had been hastily appointed due to the lack of candidates available to the FA at the time.
Despite being given two chances to qualify for the finals in Austria and Switzerland, McLaren and his men wasted both opportunities with completely inept performances to miss out on qualification for a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup.
It took years for the last manager that failed to lead the country to a major tournament, Graham Taylor, years to rebuild his reputation and there is no doubt that it would take even longer for Steve McLaren, who now has the unenviable record of the highest percentage of games lost as manager at 28%.
Talismanic Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard saved England and Steve McLaren's job with a brace in his side's 3-0 win over minnows Andorra in a Euro 2008 qualifier overnight.
After failing to breakdown Andorra in the first half, Gerrard took matters into his own hands by scoring the opener in the 53rd minute when Ashley Cole nodded Lennon's far post cross to Rooney, who flicked it neatly sidewards for Gerrard to launch a 20-yard volley into the bottom corner.
By now, England were at ease with a huge weight lifted off the players shoulders after failing to score a single goal in a number of matches and soon after, the England vice-captain doubled his side's lead.
Gerrard raced on to a clever touch by substitute Jermaine Defoe to slide a precise finish past keeper Alvarez in the 75th minute to make it 2-0 before substitute David Nugent, on his debut, ran into slot home Defoe's shot which was about to slither over the line in the last minute of normal time.
However, the 3-0 scoreline did very little to please frustrated fans who had just witnessed one of England's worst ever performances in a dull and uneventful first half.
And it took just 20 minutes for the English fans to turn on their manager and players with chants of 'You'll be sacked in the morning', 'Bring back David Beckham' and 'You don't know what you're doing" ringing around the stadium.
Andorra played with 10 men behind the ball at all times and did their best to ruffle some feathers with a vast array of underhand tactics such as pushing and elbowing, with England striker Wayne Rooney the main recipient of such poor gamesmanship.
The Andorrans managed to achieve their objective and Rooney's frustration threatened to boil over on a few occasions which that led to his booking just before the hour mark.
The yellow card for his spat with Oscar Sonejee rules him out of the June 6 trip to Estonia.
McLaren, sensing that his star striker's temper could lead to a red-card, quickly hauled off his player and replaced him with Tottenham's Jermaine Defoe.
Despite the 3-0 scoreline at the final whistle, the English fans continued to jeer off their team and quite rightly so.
Anything but a high scoreline and dominant display was never going to be enough against Andorra and England never delivered.
To make matters worse, there have been reports of a rift between the England manager and his star player Wayne Rooney after the Manchester United player was singled out for criticism in the English dressing room shortly after the match.
However, McLaren remains as bullish as ever by denying any sort of unrest in the English camp and that the current focus is on their upcoming 'must-win' clash with Andorra on Wednesday.
"It is an absolute load of rubbish. Everyone is together and know what we need to do.
"My staff are all very good and working together. We stick together, we get advice from everybody including Terry - great advice. But, ultimately, I'm in charge and it's my neck on the block." he said.
England are currently three points behind second-placed Russia and five adrift of group leaders Croatia.
Their next game is against Andorra at the Montjuic Stadium at 20:00GMT.
England were booed off the pitch by their frustrated fans in a Euro 2008 Group E qualifier against Israel over the weekend after failing to score in four of their last five matches.
The result at full-time was 0 - 0.
In a 'must-win' game for the Three Lions, McLaren's men were bereft of ideas and goal-shy to the point of embarrassment against a team ranked some 30-odd places below them in the world rankings.
Admittedly, Israel did a commendable job of frustrating their opponents by putting 10-men behind the ball at all times, but that is not an excuse for an English team bristling with talent and experience.
Despite injuries to key players, McLaren chose to put square pegs in round holes (think right winger Aaron Lennon being deployed out on the LEFT) which robbed the team of much needed balance.
Since there were no 'highlights' worth sharing on this match (watching paint dry would've been a tad more interesting), I have included some post-match interviews featuring Steve McLaren, Frank Lampard and John Terry.
In other games, France continued to show that there is life after Zinedine Zidane with an away win against Lithuania.
Fresh from reclaiming a place in the team, bad boy Nicolas Anelka fired in the only goal of the match with a low shot from outside the box.
Portugal fired four brilliant goals past Belgium in their match with star midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo carrying his rich vein of form onto the international stage with a brace of goals.
David Beckham's return to the Real Madrid first-team has been cut short by a knee ligament injury that will rule him out for 4-6 weeks.
The former England captain has been in fine form since his return to the Madrid line-up and was on the verge of an England recall for the upcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers.
The 31-year-old midfielder was hurt playing for Real Madrid against Getafe in the Spanish League on Sunday. Beckham hurt his right knee after mis-hitting a cross and running into advertising hoardings behind the goal.
Not only will he miss the chance of a recall to the national team, he will also miss Wednesday's Champions League game against Bayern Munich, a crucial match against Barcelona next weekend and possibly a further three league games.
He will also miss an emotional return to Old Trafford on 13 March when he was set to play for a European All-Star XI against the current Manchester United side.
Beckham has said many times in the past that one of his biggest regrets was not being able to say goodbye to the United fans at Old Trafford after being sold to Real Madrid in the summer of 2003.
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