England: Sven relishes clash with Brazil

Sven-Goran Eriksson has labelled England's quarter-final clash with Brazil as the battle of "the best defence against the best attack in the World Cup."

And the England coach is confident that his side can come out on top if they reproduce the performance which enabled them to defeat Argentina in the group phase.

England's strength has been their back four and goalkeeper David Seaman and they have conceded only one goal in the tournament and kept three successive clean sheets.

Brazil, in contrast, have been putting the emphasis fully on attack via the deadly pair of Rivaldo and Ronaldo.

But Eriksson believes that there are question marks over their defending - as demonstrated by Belgium in Kobe on Monday - which gives him cause for hope.

He said: "It is always a pleasure to see Brazil play football. If you give them the time and space, they are very good.

"Their attacking is excellent and they have got a lot of individual skill - but maybe they are not as good at defending as they are at attacking and hopefully we can use that.

"We need a performance like we had against Argentina. We must play as well as we did in that game if we are to beat Brazil. If we do that, we can win.

"We have to have a very compact team otherwise we will give them too much space and they will use it because they are very quick.

"I guess that maybe it is the best defence in the World Cup against the best attack. It will be a big battle but I am very optimistic."

Eriksson's optimism was further fuelled by the news that striker Michael Owen should be fit - along with midfielder Paul Scholes - to face the Brazilians.

Liverpool striker Owen suffered a groin injury after two minutes of Saturday's 3-0 win over Denmark in Niigata which led to him being eventually substituted at half-time.

Owen, who scored his first goal of the tournament against the Danes, has been given the green light to undertake some running at the team's Awaji Island headquarters today with a view to resuming full training tomorrow.

Scholes collected a foot injury in Niigata and was replaced after 50 minutes by Kieron Dyer but he is also making encouraging progress and should undertake the same programme as Owen over the next 48 hours.

Eriksson is also optimstic that he will have a complete clean bill of health in his 23-strong squad with Darius Vassell (back) and Owen Hargreaves (calf) set to be available.

The England coach said: "I think by Friday everybody will be fit. Yesterday we had two or three who didn't train but they only have small problems.

"We are almost sure that Owen and Scholes will be fit for Friday. They will probably run today and tomorrow they will do everything with the ball with the rest of us.

"The biggest problem is Owen Hargreaves but hopefully he can practice today. He is running again and it looks rather good."