If there is one thing you can always guarantee about England fans it is their ability to get carried away by success.

Since Fabio Capello's team qualified for next summer's World Cup on Wednesday - in admittedly emphatic fashion - expectations have reached fever pitch.

Nothing or nobody, apparently, can now stand in the way of England captain John Terry getting his hands on the trophy come July 11.

Well, without wanting to be a party-pooper, I believe plenty stands in the way of that happening. Heaps of plenty.

Don't get me wrong, the progress under Capello has been as dramatic as it has been substantial. He took over a squad of players that were devoid of confidence and has turned them into a real football team.

From that horrible moment in November 2007 when England were humiliated by Croatia at Wembley, to a few days ago when they crushed the same opponents at the same venue, England have been transformed.

Capello has rebuilt the confidence which now flows throughout the side and has solved some of the age-old tactical problems which have plagued managers for years. Like, for example, how to get Lampard and Gerrard to play in the same midfield.

The fact that both scored twice in the 5-1 victory shows that the Italian has succeeded were so many - most notably Steve 'wally with a brolly' McClaren - emphatically failed.

Capello's passion for discipline and his authoritarian approach has brought the players back down to earth. They no longer feel they are above the team, but merely a part of it. They no longer think they have some divine right to represent their country, but must earn that right each and every time they pull on the Three Lions.

The manager has taken no prisoners and pulled no punches as he bids to ensure his proud and remarkable career does not end with failure at international level - just look at the way the previously untouchable Michael Owen has been discarded to the scrapheap.

A qualifying campaign which has seen eight straight victories indicates that everything the Italian has done so far has worked. Booking a place at the finals with two games to spare is testament to just how much progress has been made.

Yet all this does not mean England are going to win the World Cup, and those fans who have already got this down as a foregone conclusion are a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

England are now a proper football team with cohesive tactics, drive, enthusiasm and a level of pride that has been in surprisingly short supply in recent years.

What Capello has done is effectively wake a sleeping giant. But while being awake certainly helps, it doesn't necessarily make you world beaters. As they are now, England are back on a par with the likes of Italy, France and Portugal.

But they still lag way behind teams like Spain, Germany and Brazil that have that something special that makes them genuine contenders. It is that special something which I don't believe Team England have yet discovered.

On a positive note, Capello has admitted as much. He knows his team have improved leaps and bounds in the past 18 months but he also knows there are many more leaps and a lot more bounds needed before they can become serious World Cup challengers.

His cautious approach to qualification is echoed by the players themselves. Terry, for one, was quick to point out that the team still has a long way to go before achieving true greatness.

You could argue that I am being overly pessimistic, and maybe I am. But with good reason. I have supported England for too long to be fooled by false dawns. How many times in the past have they strung together a few good results in qualifying only to be cruelly exposed as inadequate when it comes to the tournament itself?

Maybe those results have never been quite as good as these, but the principle remains. If you look at the teams in their group, only Croatia were of any serious level of competition. And they were a pale shadow of the team which cruelly humbled England two years ago.

When over the course of this campaign England have played against better teams - in friendlies, true - they have come up short. Spain gave them a footballing lesson, while they were lucky to draw with Holland.

Capello has now got 10 months to find that missing ingredient that makes a good team a great one. It may come from new personnel (Jack Wilshere would be my bet) or it may come from a different style of play, but that special something needs to come from somewhere.

If he manages that, and if anyone can Capello is your man, then England will have a great chance of going all the way in South Africa.

Personally, until they meet a team of substance and give them a decent beating, I am not going to get my hopes up.

I've done that far too often in the past.

No lady luck

Good to see England's ladies are following in the footsteps of their male counterparts and starting to lose crucial football matches to the Germans.

When it comes to the men's team, this is something we have come to expect. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, like 1966 and that infamous 5-1 under Sven-Goran Eriksson. But for the most part, when England play Germany, the Germans win.

This law of football was taken a step further earlier this summer when Stuart Pearce's under-21s made it all the way through to the Euro 2009 final only to get stuffed by Germany.

Now, not wanting to be overshadowed by the men, the women are getting in on the act too. Equality and all that.

Thanks to some stirring performances, the ladies made it through to the final of their own Euro 2009 in Helsinki on Thursday. They approached the match with confidence and expectation, knowing they should at least be able to give the Germans a run for their money. Well, they did that all right. A run for their money all the way to a walloping 6-2 defeat.

Having watched the highlights, I don't think anyone can really deny the better team won. In fact, I think it is fairly safe to say Germany scored some of the very best goals in the history of football on their way to victory. The very, very best.

If nothing else, the English girls will have gained some valuable experience from making it all the way to the final. They will have learned just what it takes to be champions at any sport. They will have learned just why their opponents have won this particular tournament five times in a row.

And, above all else, they will have learned the most important lesson of all: being English, at some point in their lives, they will lose at football to Germany.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com