Moment of truth for England's golden generation, says Neville

By George Burns Jun 29, 2006, 14:31 GMT

Baden-Baden, Germany - Gary Neville believes Saturday's quarter-final tie with Portugal will prove whether England's critics at this World Cup are right in their assumptions that the team won't succeed on their current form.

Sven Goran Eriksson's side started the tournament as second favourites but despite having what many consider the strongest England squad in over 30 years, Neville admits the team has yet to spark at the World Cup in Germany.

'Portugal will take more risks and hopefully that will give us more space to play and we can show more of the footballing ability that we have in our team,' said the Manchester United defender.

'People say it's a golden generation. That will be decided in moments like Saturday.'

Neville, who is available for selection again after missing England's last three games with a calf injury, said it was frustrating to be injured but he was now concentrating on trying to frustrate club team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.

'The difficulty that any defender has playing against someone like Cristiano is that you can play great against him for 89 minutes but he can still produce that magic moment in the 90th minute,' said the 31-year-old.

'It's only when you come off the pitch and he's not scored or hasn't set up a goal would you say that you've done well against him.

'Someone like him can produce a fantastic moment. He has an incredible belief. He's courageous on the ball.'

Neville said Portugal deserved their victory over England at the same stage of Euro 2004 but his team was determined to turn the tables this time.

'We were desperately disappointed to lose but coming out of a football match, I couldn't say two years ago that England deserved to beat Portugal and I couldn't begrudge Portugal their victory,' he said.

'They played well in that match. People could point to the fact that (Wayne) Rooney went off after 20 minutes and we had a goal disallowed (Sol Campbell) but if you actually look at the match, and take it as a whole, they played very well in that match and probably all in all deserved to win.

'We have to make sure that we are the team that deserved to win on Saturday.'

Neville concluded by saying that the match in Gelsenkirchen would also be the moment of truth for Portugal.

'It's a test for us but it's also a test for Portugal,' he said. 'This will be the strongest team they'll have played so far in the tournament as well.'