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![]() Eriksson's England will feel heat
![]() Sven scratches his head as he contemplates another experiment. STUTTGART, England -- Sven-Goran Eriksson said England have the courage to end their 40-year wait for World Cup glory as they prepared for a 'life or death' second round challenge with Ecuador in sizzling Stuttgart on Sunday. "We know we have a good team, we know we have a good chance to go a long way in this World Cup. So we want to take that chance," coach Eriksson said. "It's life or death now. You stay in Germany or you go back to England. It's about courage." England have struggled to acclimatise to the hot conditions in Germany and could be in for another testing afternoon against Ecuador with temperatures of 30-35 Celsius forecast for Sunday. Eriksson said his team would be ready for the heat and said it was vital they kept hold of possession in order to conserve energy. "We've been talking about sleeping, eating, drinking, and to prepare ourselves as well as possible for the heat," Eriksson said. "It's also important that we keep possession tomorrow. But I think we will be better tomorrow than the other three matches that we played." The Swedish coach is expected to pull a surprise by handing a place in the starting line-up to Tottenham's Michael Carrick in the midfield holding role of a 4-1-4-1 formation. Eriksson refused to be drawn on the possibility of Carrick making his World Cup debut, a move that would see Owen Hargreaves moved to right-back in place of Jamie Carragher. A sore calf continues to rule out Gary Neville although centre-back Rio Ferdinand has recovered from a groin strain and will start. Change on cardsThe England boss hinted that a change in his starting line-up was on the cards however by reiterating that all teams needed to be flexible. "The ideal thing is to keep the same 11 players and play excellent football all the way through. But that hasn't happened," he said. "However I said before the World Cup that we will need to play different systems, so maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe not." England have exited three of the last four World Cups they have appeared in to South American teams but Eriksson is convinced Ecuador are not about to make it four out of five in Sunday's game. "I'm confident that we will go through but you never know in football," Eriksson said. "I have a lot of respect for Ecuador. I've seen them on video, day and night and they have a very good team. "They had an excellent game against Poland. They have good players, they are physically strong. They have a lot of pace. They will fight tomorrow, I'm sure about that." The winners of Sunday's game face a quarterfinal against either Portugal -- who knocked England out of Euro 2004 in the quarterfinals -- or the Netherlands in Gelsenkirchen on July 1.
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