Now it is England v Portugal, Eriksson v Scolari, in the quarter-finals of this World Cup in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday. A chance for Eriksson to gain revenge, or will Big Phil Scolari beat the Swede for a third time and be able to take him home as a trophy?

Once the draw for this World Cup was made there was always a strong likelihood that England would meet Portugal in the last eight and yet, in April, our FA chief executive Brian Barwick flew to Lisbon to offer Scolari the position of England coach.

How crass that was. Scolari had a gentlemen's agreement not to commit himself to another job until his deal with the Portuguese had run its course, but the FA wanted him to waive that agreement.

It was all supposed to be a secret but Barwick, a former television executive, was astonishingly naive to imagine that, at the height of the hunt for Eriksson's successor, he could board a scheduled flight to Lisbon unnoticed.

The media descended on Scolari and camped outside his home. He said the "intrusion" was intolerable and that he would not, therefore, become England's coach. Here in Germany he has produced another excuse, saying that the problem was the FA would not let him bring his own coaching and support staff with him if he took over the England team.

Yet surely the truth is that, since it was always probable that Portugal would play England in Germany, Scolari would have been put in an intolerable position if he had accepted Barwick's blandishments.

How would his current employers have felt if Scolari had lost to his future employers? More importantly, if Scolari had been the sort of man who would pledge his future to one team while preparing one of their principal opponents for the world's biggest tournament then he would not be the sort of man England should employ.

If he could have done that to Portugal this time, he could have done it to England next time. One of the charges levelled against Eriksson is that he has no loyalty, yet we expected – demanded even – that Scolari showed a similarly brazen lack of fidelity.

Now, with Saturday looming, we can see what a horrifically bungled and brainless episode that was, and how it has handed Scolari and the Portuguese extra motivation against England.