Neville focused on England's unrepeatable chance

Quarter finals: Gary Neville was rehearsing his lines as much as answering questions yesterday. Certain senior England players address the rest of the squad and he was surely perfecting the speech he will give in the Gelsenkirchen dressing room ahead of kick-off in tomorrow's World Cup quarter-final with Portugal. The defender had many exhortations and a few warnings.

Sven-Goran Eriksson delivers his own talk before the party leaves the hotel and boards the team bus. Neville is already morphing into a manager himself, however, and his own frank, slightly querulous tone is already maturing nicely.

In his comments yesterday, he kept on stressing the fact the match is to be played on Saturday, as if he wanted to nail down the specifics. Neville wished to dismiss all vague, half-formed aspirations and concentrate utterly on this single chance that will be unrepeatable. At 31 he appreciates that this must be his first and last World Cup quarter-final.

"There is a time and moment for players to deliver and I think it's Saturday," said Neville.

"There'll be no excuses. If we fail you as a country, we have to hold our hands up and say, 'We haven't delivered. The talk of us being potential world champions was rubbish.'

"Saturday is the measure of this team. In four years' time we're in South Africa and it could be 45 degrees. We might not qualify. We've had a pretty good track to this quarter-final. We've got to beat Portugal to get to a World Cup semi-final. Is this England team capable of doing it? I believe the answer is yes.

"We have to perform if we want to be recognised as a great England team. Otherwise we'll be recognised as a nearly team, a team that promised but didn't deliver. We won't be coming to you and saying 2008 could be our time. I still think that we'll have a great chance of winning the European championship but this is our best opportunity. We've got to take it."

Neville is demanding a lot of himself. The right-back has completed one match since May 1st and he was uncharacteristically shoddy in it, England's World Cup opener against Paraguay.

He has now overcome a calf strain and wants to ignore the fact that, realistically, he cannot possess his normal sharpness.

There is a bustling impatience with any excuses that he or others could make. Neville is fully aware of the claims made for the high value of this squad and he will not sidle away from the responsibilities that come with that.

It would be demeaning for him to admit that the side craves revenge over Luiz Felipe Scolari, the coach who conquered them with Brazil in 2002 and Portugal at Euro 2004.

"We've got to win because England should be in World Cup semi-finals," he says, placing the motivations on a higher plane.

Scolari did appear to show a superior finesse in his handling of two trying games with Eriksson's side but Neville again puts the emphasis on the footballers themselves. "If Portugal seem to be doing better in one area of the game," he said, "we have to deal with that on the pitch and fix that problem. We can't allow it just to slowly eat away at us until we get to the end of the game and nothing's happened. We have to affect the match. We have to use our experience. I think we'll deliver."

For Neville, there is an excitement to all these declarations, with his pragmatism tempered by the thrill of knowing that a couple of wins will put England in the World Cup final for the first time in 40 years.

He is on solid territory, too, when he points to all the players in the squad who flourish with some regularity at Champions League level.

In view of those assets, though, the present mediocrity of England has to be addressed. It has not even felt as if the side is "in the thick of a World Cup," Neville said.

"We have played against four teams so far who have been content with stifling our play. We have found it difficult at times. Portugal are a flair team who will allow us more space on the ball and I hope that our players, whom we know are players of European and world calibre, can produce their magic for us."

For Neville it is the sense of danger that lets a side know it is caught up in the adventure of the World Cup. There may be jeopardy for Neville himself tomorrow if Portugal use the Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo on his flank. While praising his opponent, Neville gently mentions that this, even so, is the winger's first World Cup.

For Portugal as for England, the match in Gelsenkirchen will be the most searching examination of each player's worth. It soothes Neville to realise that on Sunday he can get back to all the usual things that "make our lives tick". This is, as he tells himself, "a normal game of football" but, come what may, it is one he will never forget.