England's Swedish coach Sven-Goran Eriksson may be scratching his head as to how he can end his quarter-final jinx at major tournaments when up against Portugal's coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, but there are plenty of precedents to give him heart.

Eriksson has seen his English side lose to Scolari's Brazil side in the 2002 World Cup and then to a Scolari-coached Portugal in Euro 2004 - but he does not have to search too far from perfidious Albion to take comfort.

The English cricket team - like their footballing counterparts coached by a foreigner in the form of Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher - showed the way last year ending bitter rivals Australia's 18-year hold on the Ashes with a come from behind 2-1 series win.

"It was a hell of a lot of hard work but they believed in themselves and they expressed themselves out on the pitch," was England's inspirational captain Michael Vaughan's appraisal of why they had turned things around so dramatically.

While England's Ashes victory was exhilarating viewing, there are other losing runs that come to an end that provoke more disappointment than joy.

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