With the team in turmoil after a boycott threat, England received a further blow yesterday when striker Michael Owen was ruled out of the decisive Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey with a leg injury.

　　The liverpool star, who sustained a shin injury, with-drew from the squad before the team's departure for Istanbul yesterday.

　　His absence is a major blow for England. Owen has scored 16 goals in 29 appear-ances for coach Sven-Goran Eriksson. England is expec-ted start with Liverpool's Emile Heskey and Everton teenager Wayne Rooney.

　　The team is already without Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, excluded from the squad by the Football Association after failing to turn up for a rou-tine drugs test last month.

　　The players had threatened to boycott the game unless Ferdinand was reinstated. But they backed down on Wednesday night after talks with FA officials.

　　Despite their decision to play, the players issued a statement sharply criticizing the FA's handling of the case.

　　"We feel that this week, the whole of our squad have shown togetherness and spirit to be as strong as ever in the best possible way," the statement said. "It's our opinion that the organiza-tion we represent has not only let down one of our teammates, but the whole of the England squad and its manager. We feel that they have failed us very badly."

　　England leads Turkey by one point in group 7 and needs only a draw to advance to the tournament in Portugal. A loss would send England into a playoff for a chance to qualify.

　　If england hadn't played the match, it would have been kicked out of the tournament. England was also threatened with expul-sion if fans misbehaved.

　　"It has been a different build up to this game, I must say," Eriksson said. "We haven't started to talk football yet, which is a little bit strange. Now, from tonight, we are focusing 200 percent on football."

　　Ferdinand allegedly "forgot" to appear for the test because he was preoccupied with moving house at the time. Newspapers, however, have published photos of Ferdinand out shopping the same day in Manchester.

　　But newspapers were scathing in its criticism of the players' behavior.

　　"Shameful. Foolish. Arrogant. Petulant. Selfish. Traitors." Those were some of the words used in news-papers to rip the players who threatened and then backed off to boycott the game.

　　Coverage of the threatened walkout filled the front and back pages of every English paper. The reaction was an anti-player landslide - an "own-goal" as several newspapers called it.

　　The so-called ringleaders were some of England's most cherished sports icons: captain David Beckham, Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, Gary and Phil Neville, and Sol Campbell.

　　Fifa boss Sepp Blatter said the behavior of the England players underlined the game's biggest problem.

　　"I have said it and will repeat it: there is not any longer enough discipline or respect in our game," Blatter said.

　　Talk show reaction ran heavily against the players, whose threat to walk out culminated two weeks in which English soccer has been engulfed in scandals over rape allegations, drugs, and a ban on English fans traveling to Turkey to see the game.

　　"Who the HELL do you think you are?" said the Daily Mirror in a front page headline. Mirror columnist Brian Reade, next to a chart pointing out that the 24 team members earn about 1 million pounds (US.6 million) weekly, asked a rhetorical question: "How dare these arrogant, obscenely overpaid turkeys hold the na-tion and the game to ransom?"

　　The newspaper said Ferdinand had been "at best an utter fool, and at worst a liar."

　　"So Much for Pride in Your Country," said the Daily Mail.

　　The guardian played the story No 1 on its front page. So did The Times, which called the players "the wealthiest strikers in the history of British industrial relations."