England v Portugal: Tom Humphries on the pregnant history and numerous sub-plots entailed as Portugal's coach plots the downfall of England today

Not often in life does a person pause to choose a turn at a crossroads and then, later, get a chance to see how things would have been had he taken the other path. This week has given Luis Felipe Scolari a glimpse of just what he missed when he backed out of the England job several months ago. With a little bit of history lying there between himself and this evening's opposition, Scolari has seen the British tabloid media do some twirling and stirring.

It's been as ugly to watch as an English World Cup performance. Hell hath no fury like a tabloid media scorned.

The resultant silliness between the Portuguese side and the gentlemen of the English fourth estate has prompted sneers from the latter that the Portuguese have adopted a "siege mentality". The irony is, of course, lost on the rabid purveyors of the Little England mentality but not, one imagines, on Scolari.

Big Phil will smile and mutter a quiet thank you to the red tops. Since his arrival in Portugal almost four years ago he has moaned quietly at the native fatalism that comes strained through a quiet stoicism. Again and again he has told the Portuguese all things are possible if only they can have espírito da batalha - the spirit of battle.

It's been a long and winding road that has led to this stand-off between Scolari and the mujahadin of the English media. Scolari coached Brazil when they beat England in Shizuoka during the last World Cup and was in charge of Portugal when they beat England in the quarter-finals of the Euro 2004. Now while he is, oddly, being derided as "a chicken" in the English tabloids, the realisation is growing that Scolari is most likely a better coach than Sven-Goran Eriksson and is most definitely a better coach than poor Steve McClaren.

Scolari, whose reputation is built on his passionate motivational style and ability to make surprising but effective substitutions, likes to joke with the press about their lack of understanding of what he does: "A lot of you say I don't work, it's luck, a lot of luck. I have won 16 lucky titles in my career."

Scolari finished playing back in the 1970s, retiring a style known as "uncompromising". His management career was sensational. He won his first major trophy, the Brazilian Cup, in 1991, coaching Criciúma, a small club from Santa Catarina.

By 1994, he had moved on to one of his old clubs, Gremio, one of the major football forces in South America. Grêmio.

With Grêmio he won the Brazilian Cup, in 1994; the Libertadores da América, in 1995; the Recopa, also in 1995; and the Brazilian championship in 1996.

Grêmio lost the 1995 Toyota Cup final in a penalty shoot-out with Ajax.

In the late 1990s Scolari coached Palmeiras, winning the Brazilian Cup and the Libertadores once again.

From then on it was harder to avoid the Brazilian job than to get it, and when his time came Scolari did what every Brazilian manager needs to do if he is to be judged a success: he won the World Cup.

And, wisely, he got out. Judging a return to Brazilian club football to be a step down, he headed for Europe and Lisbon and now finds himself billeted in the German village of Harsewinkel, just outside Bielefeld, watching the English media tramp on his hotel lawn.

Scolari is not a man who enjoys mixing with the media but he will have permitted himself a grin at what went on this week. The English tabloids (already warned by Fifa for trying to bully foreign journalists in the mixed zones after matches) stood accused of fabricating a story in which Pauleta the Portuguese striker is said to have belittled Paul Robinson the English goalie. Naturally, the tabs swooned in shock at the very suggestion, but the Portuguese opted to allow just three questions from English papers at the end of Wednesday's press conference.

Some of the stupidest questions in history have been asked at soccer press conferences, but given the English had just three with which to elicit the mood of the Portuguese camp and things were tense anyway, asking Nuno Valente if he had received a good-luck message from David Moyes, his manager at Everton, seemed incredibly stupid. But who are we to judge?

"What has that got to do with it?" exploded the press officer. "This is a problem between Scotland and England. It is not a Portuguese problem. Next question, please."

Pauleta was asked if the Portuguese were more afraid of the English team or the English media.

"We're not afraid of anyone." he said testily. "If you know your Portuguese history you will know we fear no-one. We want only to be respected because we respect everyone else and don't want to read fake news about Portugal."

Somewhere Phil Scolari was watching. Ah, espírito la batalha! One can only assume he has no regrets about "chickening out" of the England job.

A quiet family man he has for 41 years been happy consort to Olga Pasinata, the girl he met as a 16-year-old at a petrol station in Porto Alegre, Brazil. She has been his wife and companion and consultant through coaching stints not just in Brazil and Portugal but also briefly in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Japan. They are strangers to the Hello! magazine culture and it is difficult to know what the red tops, still fat from a diet of Sven's peccadillos and Nancy's glamour, would have made of such downbeat normality.

When asked a couple of years ago why he had not watched a tape of any England match before Portugal's quarter-final against them at Euro 2004, he said: "I have a tape of it but I won't be watching it when I get to my house. I want to see my wife - if you know what I mean."

One can only imagine how the English media would have interpreted such sweet perspective. Whatever the true reason for Scolari backing out of the England job, he will look at this week's media cavalcade and feel he dodged a bullet. And will he look at this England team and experience the same sensation? Hardly. Which isn't to say England won't or can't win in Gelsenkirchen this afternoon. Of all the sides in the last eight, England may have produced the least flair and excitement so far and the dreariness of their play has stretched the patience of all but the most blinkered of their advocates. Yet Eriksson seems these days a lucky if uninspired coach.

Portugal aren't the most intimidating of the sides England could have met at this stage of the tournament, the less so for the absences of Costinha and Deco.

Scolari, before the travesty that was the Dutch match, had the Portuguese side he wanted two years ago. Then immense public pressure forced him to start Couto Paulo Ferreira, Jorge and Rui Costa. Scolari saw them as disposable remnants of the golden generation. In Portugal though they were national heroes. Scolari gave them enough rope and then, after the loss to Greece in the opening match, opted for Ronaldo, Deco and Ricardo Carvalho.

He even made it clear he was happy to drop Luis Figo and in fact hauled the great man ashore when Portugal played England in the quarter-final at Euro 2004 - a humiliation that provoked a fine display from Figo in the subsequent semi with the Netherlands.

The Portuguese have put a brave face on the absences of Deco and Costinha, and most of the English media have been too self-obsessed to examine the consequences. They will be badly missed, however.

Deco , the little Brazilian who has lived and played in Portugal since his teens, is essential to the Portuguese attacking system. He flits around the midfield diamond with Cristiano Ronaldo and Figo out wide. Behind him is Costinha, an excellent defensive midfielder who does the mopping up and stands as the heartbeat of Scolari's team. To lose either would have been serious for Scolari. To lose both is calamitous.

Still there is consolation. Portugal may have the less-vaunted players today but they have the superior manager. It was the same that night two years ago in Lisbon.

Eriksson's tactics were incomprehensible, England's midfieldwas swamped for much of the match. Wayne Rooney had gone off injured, Paul Scholes was stranded out on the left and David Beckham was clearly unfit. Eriksson froze.

That game as much as the Shizuoka debacle two years earlier highlights the difference between the coaches. In the 63rd minute in the Estadio de Luz, which was like a pressure cooker that night, Scolari had the clearness of thought to haul off Costinha, who was playing well, and replaced him with the more attack-minded Sabrosa Simao.

Big gamble. England were nurturing a precious lead and Scolari had detected a crack. He watched what would happen.

Twelve minutes later, uproar. He took off Figo, the great talisman, and put on the workaday Helder Postiga. The pressure increased. England were holding out. And then? Simao chiselled a little opening down the right. He supplied a cross. Helder Postiga headed the equaliser.

It was Scolari's third sub, Rui Costa, who put them in front in injury-time. It was another in a catalogue of games England should have won but didn't.

Today in Gelsenkirchen, with Scolari spancilled by injuries and suspensions, Eriksson holds all the cards. Whether he plays them in the right order and with the necessary courage will be intriguing to see. Scolari has won every match he has coached at World Cup finals: seven with Brazil in 2002, four out of four so far with Portugal.

High stakes. Big man.