England rely on Beckham set-piece de resistance

ENGLAND 1

ECUADOR 0

ENGLAND'S passage into the World Cup quarter-finals may have seemed like a hard fortnight's sail round Cape Horn, but last night's victory over Ecuador in Stuttgart would give them hope that they may be at last moving into less turbulent waters.

Having once again lurched unconvincingly through the first half, Sven-Goran Eriksson's side recovered their equilibrium much more impressively than had seemed possible, even if their profligate finishing - Frank Lampard being especially culpable - left them relying on David Beckham's set-piece winner to set up Saturday's last-eight clash with Portugal in Gelsenkirchen.

The England captain has been accused by some famous football men of lacking so many attributes that it is easy to wonder how he manages to get a game for anyone. But, on and off the field, he seems never to have lost his sense of timing.

When his 25-yard drive hurtled to the right of the Ecuador goalkeeper, Cristian Mora, it was the first free-kick goal Beckham had scored for England in over three years. If you're going to end a drought, it might as well take your country into the last eight of the World Cup at the same time.

Eriksson's decision to withdraw Joe Cole 14 minutes from the end of the match and replace him with the defender Jamie Carragher was clearly intended as insurance against conceding an equaliser. It spoke, though, of the respect - and lingering doubts - the Swede had for opponents who had shown themselves to be no weaklings.

Unlike Paraguay in the opening match of Group B, Ecuador had no sense of inferiority, untouched by the diffidence of South American neighbours who appeared to be subdued simply by England's reputation in Frankfurt two weeks earlier.

But, while it is reasonable to infer that Luis Fernando Suarez's side would draw encouragement from the suffocating heat in which the match was played, it would be much more likely that the well from which their confidence sprang would be the convincing victories they registered against Poland and Costa Rica.

The self-belief might have turned to unbridled self-certainty had Carlos Tenorio taken advantage of the defensive blunders which Rio Ferdinand and John Terry perpetrated in quick succession to leave him with only Paul Robinson to beat from about the penalty spot.

Ferdinand's miscued defensive header forced Terry to stretch his neck in his attempt to intercept the wayward ball, but the Chelsea man merely deflected it into the air and towards Tenorio. The Qatar-based striker appeared only to have to direct it wide of Robinson, but his anxiety to make sure proved to be expensive.

The momentary hesitation allowed Ashley Cole to rush across the penalty area from the left-back position and reach out a foot which deflected the shot against the crossbar.

Even without the ultimate reward of a goal at that stage, however, the moment seemed to affect the Ecuador players as positively as it appeared to disconcert their opponents. Until Beckham's goal, England's general demeanour for most of the time thereafter betrayed a lack of self-assurance, manifesting itself in misplaced passes and a consistent inability to puncture the opposing defence.

In the entire first half, Wayne Rooney, for example, only once received the ball at his feet in the vicinity of goalkeeper Cristian Mora, but his run into the right side of the box was halted by the well-timed tackle of Giovanny Espinoza. Some free-kicks from David Beckham, all either competently fielded or wide, were the "highlights" of Eriksson's team's attacking in that 45-minute period, with Steven Gerrard, Lampard and Joe Cole readily kept in check in midfield and Michael Carrick, in the "holding" role behind, too often encountering difficulty in executing the telling pass.

Ecuador were contrastingly fluent in their forward movement, even if they, too, did not create many opportunities. But, when Edison Mendez delivered a wicked free-kick from the left - awarded for the foul on Carlos Tenorio for which Terry was booked - Augustin Delgado threw out his right foot and deflected the ball marginally wide of Robinson's right-hand post.

Once again, Robinson frequently appeared less than convincing, the Spurs goalkeeper failing to dominate his area and, on one occasion, completely missing as he moved to intercept a long throw from Neicer Reasco on the left.

Given England's general lack of menace in that first half, Beckham's strike was probably the least surprising occurrence of the night. Championship matches often pivot on one instance of unsuspected inspiration.

Beckham and his team-mates had, however, clearly quickened the tempo of their play and brought new energy levels to the game over the 14 second-half minutes that preceded the strike. There was an element of shock about the Ecuador side, their opponents' rediscovered ambition and physical strength seemingly a new experience. There was certainly a hint of paralysis about Mora as the ball curled inside his right-hand post, the goalkeeper appearing a little slow in getting there.

Already galvanised by their interval self-examination, England with Lampard and Gerrard finally making forward runs, looked as though they had changed personnel as well as their sweat-soaked shirts.

When Mendez made an appalling blunder, passing the ball across field and straight to Lampard, the midfielder motored into the left side of the penalty area without a challenge, but, with Rooney screaming for the service, Lampard's attempt at a cut-back was poorly struck and the opportunity was gone.

Rooney's brilliance evidenced itself soon after when he nutmegged the Ecuadorian defensive pillar Ivan Hurtado on the left and ran straight for goal before suddenly pulling the ball back for Lampard.

Once again, the normally reliable Chelsea man disappointed, hurrying the shot yards over the crossbar.

In common with England's three previous outings in the tournament, this latest offering will not have convinced anyone that they are potential winners.

But there is no doubting that, in the second half particularly, they began to show much of the surging aggression, if not the virtuosity of the Argentines and the Brazilians, that had made them so strongly fancied for the tournament from the outset.