Stiles - backing England to win again (Allsport)

By Chris Roberts, PA Sport

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Nobby Stiles believes England will recover from their agonising quarter-final defeat at the hands of Brazil and lift the World Cup once again.

The legendary Manchester United midfielder, who danced around Wembley with the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966, felt Sven-Goran Eriksson's men were unfortunate to crash out.

But he is adamant that England will soon have a side that is finally capable of laying to rest the ghost of Sir Alf Ramsey's heroes.

"They will win it again definitely and they will have a great chance to win either in four years or eight years time," Stiles said.

"They are a young side who could have won it this year. These players will get better, but they played the best side in it and were unlucky.

"The sad thing is that we deserved to be in front and could have gone on and built on that, but they equalised at a bad time and scored a lucky goal.

"These things happen, but I thought the lads have done brilliantly and I'm very proud of them. They can look forward to Euro 2004 with much more confidence."

Stiles claims that every one of Eriksson's squad can be proud of the way they performed and is confident they will get even stronger during the coming years.

He refused to single out Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman for blame after Ronaldinho's winner - but he is now backing Brazil to go on to lift the World Cup.

"I'm a bit sad and it's a big disappointment for everyone because I thought they had done so well to get where they were," added Stiles.

"I'm not sure about whether the heat affected them at that time. I just felt that it wasn't to be and the luck just wasn't on their side yet again.

"They've played some good football, beaten Argentina and Denmark having won the hardest group at the World Cup so they can hold their heads high.

"Brazil will now go on and win it because they are the best side in it and England have only been beaten 2-1 by them and people here and over there are upset.

"That shows how much we expected of these players before they went out there and they will improve because of this experience.

"You can't point the finger at anyone of the lads because they have all done brilliantly and it was just one of those things.

"But we will come back better and other youngsters will come through so I am optimistic about the future."

The next World Cup in Germany cannot come quickly enough.