Sven must combat Harry Potter's spell

For the home fans, it must have felt like welcoming back some rascally Gazza-type icon.

Nine years after he marked his debut with a goal within three minutes, the old playboy/bad boy is back out there carrying a few pounds overweight but still pulling all the strings again.

Past misdemeanours, such as insulting national coaches or getting sent off in crucial matches thanks to his hopeless short fuse - he used to be portrayed more as Draco Malfoy than Harry Potter - have been forgiven and forgotten now the cultured, unhurried left foot is purring again.

"It is a pleasure to play and learn alongside this great player," reckoned Emre, modestly brushing aside the suggestion that it's his own left foot which is even more critical to Turkey's chances here.

Anyone who witnessed Emre's buzzsaw performance at Highbury could recognise his menace.

"I loved that night," he said. "It may have looked easy against Arsenal but it wasn't. It was one of my best games but this is going to be so much harder.

"Yet even though we haven't beaten England before and we haven't even got a goal against them, we have one of the best teams in the world now. We're better than England."

Better than England. He didn't make it sound like bravado, just a simple matter of fact. That's been the striking thing about listening to some of the Turkish players this week; their willingness to toss aside any pretence at diplomacy by explaining their conviction that they are more gifted than their opponents.

What about their 2-0 defeat to Sven-Goran Eriksson's side at Sunderland in April? "Not good but we will play good in the match that's important," shrugged Emre.

If anyone still clings to the hope that the Turks still might have some sort of psychological block when playing England, Emre suggested they forget the notion.

Ref lecting modern Turkey's growing confidence in itself as a nation, there simply is no inferiority complex surrounding its football team any more. "Football is a picture of the future, not the past," shrugged general manager Can Cobanoglu. "We've erased any thought of history."

So ask them if they're worried about Wayne Rooney and you're told that, no, it's England who should be worried by their lightning Spanishbased striker, Nihat Kahveci.

Ask them where they believe they hold the edge and you get the suggestion that, man for man, they possess more technical quality and more "fantasy" players than England.

Maybe so. Emre, Sergen, Nihat, Hakan Sukur, Ilhan Mansiz, Yildiray Basturk . . . their creative and attacking options are such that their starting XI can't embrace all this excellence, let alone Hasan Sas, who was one of the stars of the 2002 World Cup yet now can't make the first team.

You still can't help wondering, though, if the weight of history and expectation might still weigh too heavily on them here.

As one squad member, Tayfun Korkut, suggested: "Fever from your supporters can sometimes make more pressure."

And there will be fever, even though the Turkish team, in stark contrast to absent and silent English friends, have played a PR blinder here all week, making the right noises about peace and love.

"I think the whole of life stops here tomorrow night, but it's a game, not a war," was Cobanoglu's message. "We have a good relationship between English and Turkish people for years and years. We mustn't lose that. So, win or lose, we must have a vision; it must be a night for coolness. Coolness from the teams, coolness from management, journalists and fans."

Noble sentiments, of course, but some will always like it hot when it comes to football here.

It's the win or lose bit that nags away, because nobody here seems to be entertaining the remotest possibility of defeat. Why would you when you've got Harry Potter on your side?