Today England will face their oldest allies, Portugal, in the quarter finals of the World Cup, and for 90 minutes all old friendships will be cast aside as they battle it out for a place in the last four.

The two nations have been allies since 1373, brought together by a treaty that has been the longest standing in history.

But today there will be no alliances, as England prepare their revenge for defeat at Euro 2004 two years ago.

Nick Elphick, 23, who lives near Newbury, and 24-year-old Hugo Alexander, of Abingdon Road, Oxford, have been friends for the last year and a half, first meeting at the Holiday Inn, North Oxford, where they both worked.

And today's match is going to mean rather more to them than most.

Nick is English, and Hugo is Portuguese, so by the end of the afternoon one of them will have the opportunity of making the other one's life a misery.

Nick said: "If we win I'm never going to let him forget it. I've already started sending him text messages to wind him up."

Football has been a connecting factor between them since they met they have both been playing football for White Hearts football team in Newbury for the past couple of years.

They are planning to watch the match together in an Oxford pub, and afterwards both hope to be celebrating their side's victory, although obviously this is only going to be possible for one of them.

Not surprisingly each has a different prediction for the final score, although interestingly they both feel the first goal will come from a penalty.

Hugo predicts that Portugal will beat England comfortably 2-0, even though they are missing two of their key players - Deco and Costinha - and are hampered by a possibly injured Ronaldo.

Nick on the other hand foresees a score line of 2-1 to England, although he said: "If England don't win, I hope that Portugal win the tournament."

Result aside, they both maintain that they will continue to be friends whatever the score is.