SOME of the British media were climbing all over each other to put the boot into the English team not more than a week ago. Now they've predictably gone to the other extreme and with everyone else following suit to a degree, a fair old jingoistic fervour has been whipped up these past few days.

The insularity of it all would be laughable were it not for the empty seats seen at matches which for quality, would surpass anything during a Premiership campaign. On Thursday morning updates on the English camp often superseded the Italy Germany match.

Throughout it all, foreign teams have been referred to with monikers such as "Eyeties" or "Krauts". Bidding to outdo each other, things have become nastier.

The Daily Mirror listed "Ten Nasties Spain Has Given Europe" which included syphillis, Spanish flu, paella and flamenco dancing, and "Jokers Sock It To The Senors", among which were: "What do you call a good looking girl in Spain? A Tourist" and "Why do Spanish men grow moustaches? To look like their mothers" and "What do you call three goats tied to a Madrid lamp post? A leisure centre".

The Sun ran a list of harmless chants in Spanish on Thursday, before yesterday leading its back page with the heading: "Beast: I'll Get Gazza" over a story about Paul Gascoigne being "stalked by the Beast of Barcelona", namely Nadal.

Spanish manager Javier Clemente also took exception to a Daily Mirror interview with Ron Atkinson, entitled Butcher's Boys, in which the Coventry manager suggested Clemente's assistant, Andoni Goicoechea, "will have his team really steamed up and in fighting form on Saturday."

"We have read what has been written and we have not received it in a very nice way but really it doesn't matter. We are focused on the game and that is all that counts." It was "not true" according to Clemente that he had said: "It will be 2,000 Spanish supporters and us against 70,000 drunkards at Wembley."

The offended Spanish press have also retaliated. The sports daily El Mundo Deportivo retorted with "Not only the cows are mad in England" and "The English press has been infected by mad cows."