England's Jonathan Woodgate (left) challenges Spain's David Villa for the ball during their international friendly match in Manchester, northern England, yesterday. - Reuters

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters)

Spain substitute Andres Iniesta cracked a superb winner as they beat a toothless England 1-0 in an international friendly yesterday.

Iniesta decided the game with a dipping shot from outside the area in the 63rd minute and England, without a win in four games, were booed off at the final whistle by a disgruntled Old Trafford crowd.

England huffed and puffed for much of the match, but carved out only one clear-cut scoring chance which striker Peter Crouch missed towards the end of the first half.

The defeat marks another disappointment for England coach Steve McClaren, whose Euro 2008 qualifying campaign in Group E has been hit by a home draw with Macedonia and a defeat in Croatia.

In Paris, a first-half goal by Javier Saviola earned Argentina a clinical 1-0 victory over France at the Stade de France.

Argentina played their punchy, inventive football throughout to deny the World Cup finalists on an icy Paris evening and give Alfio Basile his first win in his second spell as national team coach following defeats against Brazil and Spain.

Barcelona forward Saviola, who had a pretty average spell when he was playing in Ligue 1 for Monaco in 2004/05, struck the winner in the 15th minute following a typical South American move.

The match, played in front of a record French national team attendance of 79,862, was the first between the two sides since France beat Argentina 2-0 at the Parc des Princes in 1986.

Meanwhile, four Dutch goals in the second half made up for a poor first half as the Netherlands scored a comfortable 4-1 win over Russia.

Ryan Babel opened the scoring with a goal in the 68th minute with fellow substitute Wesley Sneijder doubling the lead two minutes later.

Vladimir Bistrov scored the best goal of the night to give the visitors some hope but Joris Mathijsen added a third with a header after 79 minutes before Rafael van der Vaart converted a penalty to make it 4-1 two minutes before time.

Marco van Basten was missing a complete team through injury and improvised, going against the Dutch nature by starting without wingers and missing the creativity to pierce the well-organised Russian defence.

Van Basten said afterwards: "We looked secure with our starting line-up but it didn't work out as we planned, so we made some changes at half-time.

"We took more risks and played more football with Sneijder and Babel, who both did very well."