The last and only time that England won the FIFA World Cup was in 1966 and of the obstacles they removed from their path on that journey was Portugal, whom they defeated in the semi finals. With the Brit's victory over Ecuador and the Portuguese rugged win over the Netherlands, these two will get at it this Saturday.

While a win is a win the play of England was uninspired and it took a free-kick by overrated David Beckham to allow the lads a chance at redemption this Saturday. I say this because most analysts will suggest that Sven-Goran Eriksson's men in Gelsenkirchen, will need to be a whole lot sharper if they plan on reaching the semi's!

The midfield of Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole is one of the strongest in the tournament, yet for all their individual talent, is seems that as a unit they are not functioning as strongly as they would hope for.

The performances of the England defence, who kept their third clean sheet in four matches is also reason for optimism. Full-backs Owen Hargreaves and Ashley Cole combined effective runs down the flanks with timely defensive interventions, none more so when Cole blocked a goal-bound effort from Carlos Tenorio in the 11th minute, which ricocheted off the crossbar and out for a corner.

England has gotten by with some very mediocre performances but at the end of the day they don't give any extra points for style, so they are where they wanted to be. As for Portugal, this is an experienced team that will use every trick in the book to throw a team off their game.

The game ended with the Netherlands and Portugal playing nine aside and the second half was played at a snails pace due to the consistent whistle of the referee.

Although more accustomed to patrolling the middle third of the field, Portugal's Maniche seems to have taken a liking to more offensive duties. That certainly appears to be his brief at Germany 2006, having now scored in two consecutive games. His cracking first-half strike in Nuremberg was enough to send his team through to the quarter-finals.

The midfielder served notice of his eye for goal against Mexico last Wednesday, and followed that up by stealing into the Netherlands penalty area and firing a powerful right-footed drive past Edwin van der Sar. Incidentally, the goal sealed Luiz Felipe Scolari's 11th consecutive FIFA World Cup win.

Bob Acton

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