Luis Felipe Scolari is nothing if not unpredictable.

Just when a group of English journalists had despaired of catching sight of him other than on a football pitch at Portugal's heavily guarded training centre, he appeared behind the public bar of the Hotel Klosterpforte, rummaging amongst the bottles, wearing a Portugal football shirt.

He could easily have been mistaken for the barman except that when informed of the company he was keeping he scooted out at a speed Cristiano Ronaldo, if fit, would have struggled to match.

Eccentric. Absurd. The master of the unexpected. And as a coach utterly brilliant.

That is the challenge facing Sven-Goran Eriksson in Saturday's World Cup quarter final in Gelsenkirchen as he tries to outwit the man who has knocked England out of the last two major tournaments.

Last time in Euro 2004 England could point to the injury to Wayne Rooney, which robbed them of their most potent threat at the most crucial time.

Back in 2002 in Shizuoka, Scolari simply out-thought and out-manoeuvred Eriksson as 10-man Brazil handed England a lesson in the virtue of keeping the ball.

This time England could have no excuses. They have been dealt the strongest of hands.

The suspensions to Deco and Costinha and the suspect fitness of Ronaldo, have swung a quarter-final which appeared weighted in Portugal's favour back towards Eriksson.

It is up to the Swede to seize the opportunity and take England to only the third World Cup semi-final in their history.

They will not do so via the cautious and negative tactics employed thus far, which have seen them progress past Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Sweden and Ecuador but which also have drawn stinging criticism from FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Who cares what Blatter thinks, you might say, except that for once Blatter was mirroring the thoughts of the majority of football fans, not just in England but around the world.

So far England, in the vernacular of the bars throughout the land, have stunk the place out.

Against Portugal that will not get the job done. You rarely witness a dull Portuguese game.

Scolari is a risk taker, but one who computes the balance between attack and defence as precisely as any who have coached the game.

He is also a man who thinks on his feet and while few coaches are more animated on the touchline, none possess a colder, more analytical brain.

His strength is Eriksson's weakness.

But, in truth, this quarter-final is all about England. It is about Eriksson finding a way to release a team of supposedly golden talents but ones who have struggled to impose them on mediocre opposition.

If England are to triumph then this is the stage for those feted stars to justify their reputations.

That means Steven Gerrard dominating the ball in the way he does for Liverpool. It means Frank Lampard supplying the penetration he shows for Chelsea. In many ways Lampard has been the most disappointing aspect of England's displays so far.

Lots of shots but no guile, no imagination, nothing to suggest that here is a playmaker to unravel the defences of the world's finest. Every World Cup-winning team needs one, a Zidane, a Ronaldinho, a Maradona.

It is what England miss most of all.

Yet there is still hope. And mostly it comes because there is every chance this quarter-final will be a good old-fashioned footballing tear-up.

A match with space and movement. A game with two sides looking to counter attack, one in which England will be forced to raise their ambitions.

English sides invariably respond in such circumstances. Think how wretched it would be for such as captain David Beckham to live with the knowledge his England team had let caution strangle their opportunity of a lifetime.

How galling for Eriksson to pack his bags at Soho Square having taken England to three quarter-finals but failed to take that extra vital yard.

If Beckham means what he says the signs are promising. "We do it our way," he says. "It's up to us to enjoy ourselves and win football matches."

For what it's worth my hunch, more with hope than conviction, is that they will shade it. And in a thriller too.

But with a genius such as Scolari around you just never know.