Even when I was voted Fifa's player of the year I was still massacred the first time I had a bad match."But the kind of goal I scored against Belgium gives you a little time. It lifts the pressure, and though I'm still not completely recovered from injury, I am very encouraged to fight my injury. I can see some light."Ronaldo and Rivaldo stand almost shoulder to shoulder on the training field touchline and the symbolism of this is not lost on their coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, who knows that the drumbeats of Brazil which filled the stadium in Kobe on Monday night will be replaced by traditional howls of bloodlust if England shake Brazil into a fatal stumble in Shizuoka. "The team has grown strong together in the last few weeks," says the coach "We haven't always been thinking as one but we are now. England have our respect, but we are very confident."It is a familiar speech by a Brazilian coach buoyed by his nation's belief that there will always be redemption for "the little gods in yellow." But such a mood ran high in Paris four years ago, before Ronaldo was stricken by a fit on the morning of the World Cup final with France and reached the Stade de France just an hour before the kick-off after undergoing a full body scan. Scolari's predecessor, Mario Zagalo, who had won the great trophy both as a player and a coach, threw his hands up and said, "Ronaldo is Ronaldo. If he wants to play, he plays." Brazil's captain, Dunga, was so incensed by the decision he kicked every ball in anger and was as anonymous as the bleached-out superstar.Now Ronaldo asserts that he is back to where he was before the black day in Paris, and that there will indeed be redemption, a real one and not some stay of execution from the governor's office It will be a great clearing of doubt rather than temporary relief, he suggests,"English football is exceptionally strong and when I have played there in club competition I have always had an itchy feeling that it is a real challenge," he says.

"We know Beckham and Owen have special talent, but when you have been through the pressure which is normal for a Brazilian player and reached this point in the World Cup you know you can support the belief in yourself – and the team."I want to prove that I can produce the best of my football. I want to show all my power, and that in the next few games I can go beyond my best, do the things that I believed I would four years ago. We know England can be good – but we know we can be better. This is always a Brazilian belief."The belief seems to hold up in the bright mid-afternoon light, though the twilight of doubt was scarcely lifted in the Kobe stadium this week when Belgium harried Brazil's vulnerable defence to the point of breakdown.

"We are happy about the way we defended this week," says the captain, Cafu. "The Belgians were very strong and determined but we held them – and then the forwards did their work. England have always been a strong team, but we know they have developed into a different game. They pass the ball more and they have great speed at the front with Owen. We have a challenge, but we know we can beat it."Juninho, who saw the first shoots of a potentially new England during his stint at Middlesbrough, agrees that the team of Sven Goran Eriksson has a formidable range of options. "Beckham's passing ability is exceptional, and the whole team has strength," says the little midfielder, who may tomorrow start on the bench – the price of being replaced in the second half on Monday by Kleberson, who delivered the killer pass converted by Ronaldo.