A torrid night for Michael Owen ended in acrimony and farce when he was branded a "shoddy little guy" in the midst of a furious 15-minute tirade by Carlos Alberto, Azerbaijan's Brazilian coach.

"Before the game I saw him saying that, if Poland could beat Azerbaijan 8-0, he could score five goals himself," said an intense Carlos Alberto. "I'd like to tell this little guy that he should have some respect. I've been in football for 45 years. Who is Michael Owen? What has he won? The World Cup? OK, he plays for Real Madrid but he is on the bench every game and he does not have the right to say he will score five goals against us.

"He needs to clean his tongue and wash David Beckham's boots with it because they got rain on them tonight and that's all he's worth. He thinks he's the king but who is he? What is his history?"

As captain of Brazil's World Cup winning team in 1970, Carlos Alberto is entitled to question Owen's achievement but on this occasion it appears he misconstrued a simple remark from Owen.

"I know Michael well and he would never say anything like that," Sven- Goran Eriksson later said. "It's simply not his style. He might have said he hoped to score but this appears to be a misunderstanding."

Eriksson said he would try to put Carlos Alberto straight but he may have his work cut out. "I am sorry about my anger but he does not deserve a guy like me to be talking about him," said the losing manager. "Mr Eriksson is a gentleman and I will tell him to teach this shoddy little guy to respect everyone. To be a footballer first you have to be a man and he's not. I hope he respects his family but I don't know if he does. And I hope one day he plays in Real Madrid's starting line-up. He's a midget and I am not prepared to discuss him any longer."

His diatribe rounded off a thoroughly unsatisfactory evening for Owen who squandered more chances than he will care to remember and was booked for hand-ball, meaning he will be suspended from England's trip to Wales in September.

"Hopefully he saved his goal for more important games," said a sympathetic Eriksson. "It's a pity he won't be available in Wales but I hope it is not a huge problem. That apart, I am very pleased. We could have easily scored five or six but we created a lot of chances and that's very good."