England, Brazil hit by the curse of Big Phil and Zizou

BERLIN: England and Brazil must hate the sight of Luiz Felipe Scolari and Zinedine Zidane respectively as both saw their World Cup hopes dashed by them again in the quarter-finals.

England's old bad habits of pivotal players being sent-off and not winning penalty shootouts surfaced once again as Wayne Rooney was red carded for treading on delicate parts of Ricardo Carvalho's anatomy.

They then proceeded to fail to convert three of their penalties after the match ended 0-0 and ended Sven-Goran Eriksson's reign exactly how they had started it at a major tournament in the last eight of the World Cup at the hands of Scolari's Brazil.

However if Brazil thought they were going to make it a head on clash with their former handler then Zidane - their nemesis in the 1998 final when he scored twice in the 3-0 victory - and France had other ideas as they completely rattled the five-time champions from the outset.

In the end it was not Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and company running the show but the soon to be put out to grass 34-year-old Zidane, though it was Thierry Henry who got the only goal of the match.

The end result is that the two former galacticos of Real Madrid will meet in the semi-final as Luis Figo and Zidane battle it out while the two remaining ones, David Beckham and Ronaldo, head home early with serious question marks over whether either at the ages of 31 and 29 we will see them at another World Cup.