Thursday night's match has the capacity to be one of the all time great games. I cannot see England containing Portuguese attacks on either flank and equally expect England's midfielders and forwards to be too mobile for the Portuguese to cope with. Add in massive levels of sense of destiny (Portugal at home plus done the "difficult" one knocking out Spain and England in with a chance of winning something) and I think this will be a cracker with loads of goal mouth incident. Would not be surprised if either side took an early 2-0 lead and for the loosing side to produce an inspired fight back. If England are to win, expect Beckham to hog the Friday morning headlines. He either has to raise his game considerably above the mundane level he has shown so far or Portugal will over-run us once too often. Our passing is too poor to play keep ball against the Portuguese so Beckham will have to produce a non-stop running display combined with hitting passes that really hurt the opposition. That said, if England do get through, the bogey country Sweden will be waiting for us in the semi-final.

England are doing much better than I expected, but... Calamity James for the first goal Three pieces of Keystone Cops defending went unpunished by the Croatians last night. Phil Neville made the worst substitute appearance since Ali Diao (George Weah's "cousin") Beckham? Portugal in the last eight is a huge match- the home team have more than enough individual talent to beat us but at least the English players are used to nullifying Ronaldo. For once, my gut feel is for England to go through- kiss of death! With Spain out, Italy Totti-ing and Germany in trouble, there could be an unexpected opponent at the semi-final stage.

I think I read he is expected to sign when he returns from holiday in two weeks' time. No point in the Rovers paying his wages or Leeds paying his pay-off cheque any earlier than absolutely neccessary.

Did Phil Neville do anything to help England's cause when he came on? A foul first attempt at a touch and three ludicrously misplaced passes. Apart from that a good game and a decent performance.

Love these one liners- The Italians losing Totti will be the making of their Euro campaign. They will now be dangerous because they will become a team again. The Germans have looked better than I expected- man for man not that much worse than England to be incapable of turning us over in a one-off. The Dutch might hate each other but would hate us even more if we have to play them. They have nine of the best players in the tournament and two donkeys. Unfortunately we are not strong enough in the wide positions to exploit the places where their donkeys play. The Spaniards are man for man the best squad in the tournament. One day they will bring it altogether- could be our bad luck that day is in the next round against us. If it is, we're out. The Czechs are still warming up. They will be hot by the time the draw would bring us together. The Greeks will know that the odds on England being rescued from a deserved beating from them by a second 95th minute Beckham free kick are very long indeed- especially as the game will not be at Old Trafford. Portugal are looking far less than the sum of their parts- if playing England at home doesn't motivate them to produce the goods, nothing will. You forgot the Swedes- definitely the dark horses, beating England is their favourite party piece. Look at the record book. Remember what happened the game after England got a flattering 3-0 winning scoreline at the World Cup?

Siriwan, I know what you mean about Bilbao- that is heavy industry. The point I was making is that the road out of San Sebastian towards the French border has same sort of built up/industrial look as driving along Philips Road in Blackburn.

Payton in Portugal So that's why the trouble started.

I am really pleased with this signing. For this coming season (which is the only one which REALLY matters), de Pedro is probably much less of a risk than MGP. He has been there done it and played consistently well in one of the world's top leagues as well as internationally for Spain. It means that oppositions have to cover the full width of the park to stop potential Rovers' match winners and it is a long time since that was last the case. Whilst San Sebastien (home of Real Sociedad) is one of my favourite cities visually, it isn't exactly a bundle of laughs- there is heavy industry, unemployment and the security situation is not good with an average of at least two ETA outrages in the city every year. It has the same uneasy feeling as parts of Ireland with the amount of Basque flags and political grafiti. Oh, and we talk about rain in Blackburn? You ain't seen rain until you have been to the Basque country! If he had been living in the countryside around San Sebastien, I don't think he will find the countryside and people in it that different around Blackburn. As for his problem (which he clearly has- Sociedad isn't such a rich club they could sideline a star player for most of a season, even if he said he was off on a Bosman at the end of the year- Bolton would have nobody playing for them on that basis!), it could easily become our problem. The Rovers must have had a lot of experience of knowing how best to bring in overseas players by now and to be honest, I think they have been plain unlucky in the past. After all, by all accounts, Grabbi was very happy living in Lancashire- shame about the football! Lets see if Souey has learnt some new managerial skills during his post-season reflection he told us he would be doing. A big fall out with de Pedro is the last thing we want.

Actually it was anti-yob. Strange you should equate English with yob.

Obviously the club are looking for a highly lucrative fixture having reasoned that the Blackburn public will not show up in big enough numbers for a prestige home friendly. Wouldn't be surprised if it is quite a long haul. Middle East if lucky, Far East if not- there are a few tournaments around which have been organised with no big name participants. Given Cheslki, Arsenal, Spuds, Man U, Liverpool and Newcastle pre-seasons are all sorted, Rovers must be the biggest name now available.

As the Manchester Evening News have reported that Rovers have made serious enquiries about Butt, I suspect the Souness "no money for transfers" comments were directed at Old Trafford rather than at our supporters. On that basis, saving a few £m from the transfer fee is worth more than a few impressionable fands not renewing their £400 season tickets. The club is probably reasoning that if those fans are so impressionable, they will be swayed by the line up the Rovers have assembled by the middle of August. The comments in the LET would also indicte that whilst there are wage problems over Matteo, the transfer remans a very real possblity and the predicted squeeze has gone onto those impecunious folk at Elland Road to help ease the deal. Certainly seems that Celtic are not in the equation (which did worry me) but Souey's transfer shadow, David Moyes has popped up again (which should not be too much of a problem).

My reading is that the Rovers deliberately cooled this potential transfer to see if the player (or his agent) have any hunger for Prem soccer. On that basis, I very much doubt we will see him at Ewood.

If MGP is interested in coming to Ewood, he had better let his opinions be known now. Rovers are reported by The Independent to be in negotiations to bring Javier de Pedro to Ewood on a free. Hope that does not mean we are saving our entire transfer budget for a move for Nicky Butt whom I fear will prove to be as underwhelming a signing as Dwight Yorke.

For many of the Swiss, Switzerland v France is not dissimilar to being Scottish playing the English. Stranger things have happened... England need two wins now and certainly to beat the Swiss- preferably by a decent margin.

Some more reflections: The England defence looked good enough to be able to resist the occasional Swiss break away or Croatian magic so on balance I now expect England to qualify. The Swiss game will be very dour if England dont break through early. Nice to see Englands most potent forwards coming from non-Champs League Clubs (Everton and Villa). With the report in the Mail this morning that Gerard is definitely going to Chelsea, looks like Abramovich has moored his yacht for more than watching football. Could be a big disruptive influence if he is trying to buy Rooney and Gerard. No wonder Everton are jumpy. Joe Cole must be feeling highly insecure as well. With Heskey confirming his lack of guile, their is a vacancy for a tall commanding English forward- Jon Stead could be a feature in the World Cup qualifying matches.

Not good, but at least the loonies stayed at home. Croydon, Cheshunt, Boston?

A lot of tactical naivety in these pages. Had we defended further up the field we would have been turned over long before the 92nd minute. France have pace to burn. Give them space by defending too far forwards and they will create chance after chance. As it was, they had perhaps two half chances from open play all game? The English failure was not holding the ball in the second half when we got possession. Had France been defending a 1-0 lead in the second half, you would have seen far more keep ball and players running into space (not going forwards neccessarilly). The criticism of Scholes and Beckham in that regard is correct. Both were very poor on the "out" ball. Fortunately Hargreaves looked very good as a Scholes replacement,

You're joking aren't you? Beckham's penalty was going in exactly the same position as Zidane's. If James had dived that way he may well have saved it. 1) Get video of game 2) Watch both penalties in real time and slowmo. 3) Come back and say you are mistaken. We forgive you.

Owen was at least putting a lot of pressure on the French defence and creating space which Rooney and others could use. The Beckham penalty was even worse watching it again. He put it exactly where goalkeeprs want it. Right height, pace and position to be saved.

mea culpa! I actually used DEFENSE to try to exculpate myself from having typed MIDFIELD in error in an earlier post.... not realising I was inadvertently setting up a spelling competition! I will revert to edit mode in future

Beckham was totally off the pace all evening. He seems to have forgotten how to run and pressurise in his year of loos women in Madrid. Perhaps all the ink is slowing him down- what a tart! Lets face it, he was very lucky to score with that penalty against Argentina and his effort tonight was woeful. However, Lampard's goal came from a magnificent Beckham free kick which was against the run of play at the time. Heskey has found his level playing alongside tinkerbell Taylor at Brum. What a stupid tackle to give away the freekick. With ZZ taking it, I would have stuck a man on the post and blow the offside confusion. Positives- Campbell and Rooney were awesome. The Italian commentators were besides themselves in admiration. Negatives- we are going out. The morale will be rock bottom and the Swiss and Croats only need draws against us. They will defend like their lives depend on it.

In my central DEFENSE, yes I have- its lovely apart from all the klaxons and air horns of the celebrating Labour supporters. (84% turnout- even Euro Elections really matter here)

Matteo will be a very poor signing.. A very big mistake to sign him.. Given that Matteo, if he comes, would be a direct replacement for Todd, I reckon he would be a massive improvement in every respect. I would have had more time for your carping if Rovers dod not already have four (Short, Nissa, Amo, McEveley) top level contenders for central midfield. Matteo's ability to play at full back gives us more options in positions we are more exposed if Neill/Gray are injured, suspended or loose form.

Karayaka came on as a second half sub. He won't want to remember his first involvement but looked pretty good on the ball. Didn't like the way he slowly jogged around though when Russia were chasing the game in the last 20 minutes.

Al, Fascinated to see Ferguson in such hallowed company. I hope you are right!