London: The powerhouse teams made it to Euro 2008. All except one.
England won't be joining World Cup holder Italy, three-time European champion Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, defending champion Greece and the other seven qualifiers who will travel to Austria and Switzerland next June.
England lost 2-3 at home to Croatia on Wednesday and that means the likes of David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen will be watching the games on TV instead of playing in them.
"It's a summer without seeing the flags out in the streets and seeing the atmosphere around England and that's going to be devastating for the country," said Beckham, the Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder who could wind up stuck on 99 England appearances.
"We all know there are more important things than football in the world. But, for us not to qualify for a competition, it's a huge, huge thing and we're disappointed. But, like the English way, we have to come back from it."
The full line-up for next year's European Championship was finalised on Wednesday when Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and Russia captured the last four spots.
Russia qualified with a 1-0 victory over Andorra but mainly because England squandered a two-point lead by losing 3-2 at Wembley.
After Beckham came off the bench and provided the cross to set up Peter Crouch for an equaliser at 2-2, it looked as if England had captured the point it needed to edge out the Russians. But Mladen Petric scored a long-range winner for Croatia with 13 minutes to go to silence the Wembley crowd of 88,000.
While England manager Steve McClaren refused to quit, his time could be up on Thursday, when his bosses at the Football Association meet to discuss where the team goes from here.
While the other teams prepare for the Euros, England faces nothing but friendlies until they reach the World Cup qualifying matches, details of which will be decided at the draw in Durban, South Africa, on Sunday.
Marcus Allback scored a first-minute goal to put the Swedes on the way to Euro 2008 in a 2-1 victory over Latvia in Group F.
"It's wonderful to win at home before our own fans in the last qualifier and to experience a fifth straight major next summer will be fantastic," manager Lars Lagerback said.
Spain, which already had qualified from the group, finished at the top by beating Northern Ireland 1-0.
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Turkey defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 with a 43rd-minute goal by Nihat Kahveci in Istanbul. The 2002 World Cup semi-finalists advance along with defending European champion Greece, which already had guaranteed a place and finished at the top of Group C after winning at Hungary 2-1.
Greece go to Euro 2008 with the best qualifying record of 10 victories, one loss and one draw.
Turkey's narrow victory was enough to edge out Norway, who won at Malta 4-1 helped by three first-half goals by Steffen Iversen.
Greece finished with 31 points, followed by Turkey with 24 and Norway with 23.
Portugal needed only to avoid defeat against visiting Finland to make it along with Group A winner Poland.
Poland topped the standings with a 2-2 draw against Serbia and finished with 28 points to Portugal's 27. Finland had 24 points and Serbia, who has one game still to play after Saturday's postponement of their match against Kazakhstan, have 21.
Before Wednesday's games, 10 teams had qualified to join co-hosts Austria and Switzerland in next year's championship - three-time winner Germany, World Cup champion Italy, Greece, France, Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania, Poland and Croatia.
The draw for the four first-round groups will take place in Lucerne, Switzerland, on December 2.
Italy finished at the top of Group B with a 3-1 victory over the Faeroe Islands, and France finished second after a 2-2 draw with Ukraine in Kiev.
The Czech Republic finished ahead of Germany in Group D by winning 2-0 at Cyprus with goals by Daniel Pudil and Jan Koller. The Germans were held to a 0-0 draw at home by Wales and finished two points behind.
Four days after guaranteeing a place in the final tournament with an unimpressive 1-0 victory over Luxembourg, the Netherlands tumbled to a 2-1 loss at Belarus. Vitaliy Bulyga and Vladimir Korytko put the home side ahead and Rafael van der Vaart's reply for the Dutch came with only a minute to go.
The Dutch team's poor performances have led to calls for manager Marco van Basten to be fired.
Romania finished at the top of Group G after a 6-1 win over Albania.
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