Steven Gerrard Aims to Take Care of Unfinished Business With Croatia

Steven Gerrard is determined to exorcise the memory of "the lowest moment" of his international career by beating Croatia on Wednesday and qualifying for next year's World Cup finals.

Gerrard was stand-in captain, for the injured John Terry, against Slaven Bilic's Croats in November 2007 when a 3-2 home defeat wrecked England's chances of reaching Euro 2008 and condemned the then manager, Steve McClaren, to the sack within hours of the final whistle.

"There is unfinished business for all of us," said Gerrard after Saturday's friendly victory against Slovenia. "The result and the performance that night really hurt us. It was definitely my lowest moment in an England shirt. It has taken a long time to get over it. I'm still not over it now, to be honest.

"We still remember the feeling we were left with afterwards in the dressing room and I don't think I will be over it until we get that qualification under our belts this week. We remember the result two years back and will use it to motivate ourselves on Wednesday. But if you can't get motivated to beat a team to get to the World Cup then you've got a problem. This is the 'cup final', and it's a game we go into with confidence. We know we have a fantastic chance and w e want to get the job done straight away."

England won 4-1 in Zagreb last year and they are four points ahead of Croatia at the top of Group Six, needing victory on Wednesday to guarantee qualification for next year's finals in South Africa. Fabio Capello's players see the match as an opportunity that must be taken, after they watched the last major international tournament from afar.

Jermain Defoe struggled to describe the disappointment of McClaren's last game. "It was like: 'It's all over,'" he said. "We were out of the European Championship before [it had] even begun."

"We're just all looking forward to Wednesday," said Gareth Barry. "There are a lot of players in that dressing room who won't forget that night at Wembley and we're back here again. There'll be a few memories. It was the lowest point of my career, being on the verge of a major championship and then seeing it taken away. That's not a nice feeling.

"This is England we're talking about and we need to be part of the big tournaments. It was just a disastrous, dull night. No one thinks back to the conditions – it was all about the result. We need to put that right.

"But we've come a long way since then. This time it's a different manager and a different team and, although what happened two years ago will be in the back of our minds, we'll be confident. Everyone wants to put it to bed and get across the line. I'm sure we'll be firing on the night. We played some of the best football we've played under this manager when we won in Zagreb, and discipline was a massive thing in Croatia. We know they'll fire into challenges and try to make it tough, but we'll talk about keeping our heads. Keeping 11 players on the pitch is definitely going to help us. The pressure is all on them this time because they know we can qualify on Wednesday."