World Cup 2006: Gerrard: We Must Raise Game

This is turning into a World Cup of promises. "We're doing our best to improve," Thierry Henry said this week on behalf of France. "We've got to raise our level," Mario Zagallo, Brazil's veteran assistant coach, remarked. "What's most important for a team that wants to win the title," he added, "is to know how to give more at the key moment." For no team is this need to make performance match potential more urgent than for England, and no one sees it more clearly than Steven Gerrard, in words that reflect his uncompromising directness.

When he was asked, on the eve of today's quarter-final against Portugal, whether England could win the tournament if they carried on playing the way they have played in their first four matches, he avoided the verbal formulations used by most of the squad, including the head coach, to deflect the unwelcome thought.

"I don't think so," he said, missing a beat. "Do you? I don't."

Which means not that he believes England are incapable of winning the World Cup but simply that he refuses to deny the need for a transformation.

"When you go this far in the competition," he continued, "you're up against sides who won't let you beat them by playing like that. This is the time, the last eight, when we've got to raise our performance or we could be on the plane home. I'm desperate not to go home. I want to stay for the whole duration."

At 26 Gerrard is not one of the generation of England players who are preparing their World Cup curtain call. He is, however, the equal of his seniors in the sheer force of his presence on and off the field and his quietly forceful nature makes him more willing than most to confront the reasons why the standard of England's play has fallen short of their hopes and, in particular, why the rediscovery of his partnership with Frank Lampard is one of the keys to realising the squad's ambitions. And on the occasions that he chooses to trot out a familiar excuse, it tends to acquire more weight.

"We've got to pass the ball better and keep the ball better," he said. "We're trying to force the play too much. We need to play at a higher tempo but it's been difficult because most of our matches have been in the early afternoon and it's difficult to pass the ball on these pitches because they're so dry. But some teams that everyone's been saying have played great football are on the way home. We've had criticism, and rightly so, but it's not too late to start playing well. If we put in a good performance and go into the last four, we won't be scared of anyone."

His long-range special against Trinidad & Tobago and his far-post header against Sweden make him England's top scorer in the competition to date, a success contrasting with the failure of Lampard to find the net. Gerrard's sympathetic analysis of his partner's plight - which could be summarised as four full matches, 22 shots and no goals - contained a rare and intriguing hint that Lampard's self-belief might have taken a knock over the past month.

"It's that fine line between scoring and not scoring. Scoring goals gives you confidence," Gerrard said. "He's scored so many goals for Chelsea and for England over the past couple of years and because he hasn't scored in this competition he's maybe doubting himself. His all-round play has been good. We're happy with that. But he's set himself such high standards that, if he doesn't score for a couple of games, people are going to doubt him. He's getting into the right positions, so we know he's going to score an important goal for us. Hopefully it'll be on Saturday."

Against Ecuador the presence of a defensive midfield player allowed Gerrard and Lampard to push further up the field in support of Wayne Rooney, the single striker. "If we stay with the 4-5-1," Gerrard said, "the idea is to get me and Frank into goal-scoring positions. If you look at our performances all season, you'll see what we're trying to achieve. If I'm asked to play with Frank in a 4-4-2, I've got to be careful about when I go forward because I know Frank's going to go all the time.The holding player gives me a licence to get forward and try to make things happen in that area of the field, which is where I feel I produce my best stuff. I think it got better as the game went on. We've watched tapes of that game and we've done some things in training and I'm sure it'll improve."

Gerrard's refusal to be beaten provided the fuel for Liverpool's historic comeback in last year's Champions League final and his sheer vigour carried the club to victory in this year's FA Cup final. He is not finished yet.

"We want to be remembered as the second team to win the World Cup," he said. "That's the aim, simple as that. If we get the right result against Portugal, that'll give us the confidence to go all the way. People are saying that it would be great to get to the semi-final but I'm thinking, 'Well, I want to play in the World Cup final.'"