THE World Cup has a habit of unearthing England's stars of the future, and the to names of Paul Gascoigne and Michael Owen can now be added that of Jill Scott.

Last month, Sunderland-born Scott travelled to England's pre-tournament training camp at Macau still to make a senior start for the national side.

This afternoon, in Tianjin, China, the 20-year-old will be at the heart of England's midfield as they take on favourites United States in the World Cup quarter-finals. Even more incredibly, she will kick off the match as England's player of the tournament so far.

"All of this is already beyond my wildest dreams," said Scott, who was born in Fulwell, attended Monkwearmouth School, and honed her footballing skills with Fulwell Juniors and Boldon Girls before joining Sunderland at the age of 14.

"To be perfectly honest, my ambitions at the start of the tournament were to make one or two substitute appearances in the last ten or 15 minutes of the games. If I had been able to do that, I would have been happy.

"So to start two matches already is amazing and to have a chance of being involved in a third against the United States is even better. We don't know the team yet, but hopefully I have a chance of being involved in the biggest game of my life."

Scott is being typically self-effacing. Not only does she have a 'chance' of starting this afternoon's quarter-final, her name is likely to be one of the first on manager Hope Powell's team-sheet.

Having made a 15-minute substitute appearance in England's opening game against Japan, Scott was elevated to the starting line-up as Powell selected a five-woman midfield for the crunch clash with Germany.

The leggy midfielder, whose all-action style is reminiscent of former Arsenal skipper Patrick Vieira, tackled tigerishly as England held the reigning world champions to a goalless draw, and retained her place for the 6-1 win over Argentina.

Again, she caught the eye, spraying passes far and wide from her central midfield berth and claiming her maiden international goal in the tenth minute.

As two Argentina players converged on a loose ball 30 yards from goal, Scott's commitment enabled her to win the subsequent tackle and propel a long-range effort that crept into the bottom right-hand corner of the net. Shot or tackle, either way it represented her coming of age on the international stage.

"Everyone has been asking whether I meant it or not," said Scott. "The honest answer is that I don't really know.

"It's all a bit of a blur and all I really remember is watching the ball creep past the Argentina keeper. It's something I can always look back on, but the most important thing was that it made it 2-0 and that was the scoreline we needed to get through.

"The rest of the performance was really positive and it's set us up nicely for the quarter-final."

Locked away in their team hotel on the opposite side of the world, Scott and her England team-mates are largely unaware of the interest that the World Cup has generated in this country.

The BBC's decision to televise all three of England's group games has been vindicated with healthy audience figures, and with today's game kicking off at 1pm GMT, the quarter-final is expected to attract the largest British audience for a women's football game.

Even more will be watching on the other side of the Atlantic - women's football is more popular than its male equivalent in the United States - and the scale of England's task can be measured by the gap between the two sides in the world rankings.

While England kicked off the World Cup ranked number 12 in the world, the USA have topped the rankings charts for the last four years. Having already upset the odds against Germany, however, the English squad are confident of springing another surprise later today.

"We know we'll be starting the game as outsiders," said Scott, whose presence will help to negate the absence of the suspended Fara Williams, England's most experienced midfielder. "But I don't suppose the USA are particularly pleased to be playing against us in the quarter-finals.

"If we want to go all the way in this competition - and we do - we're going to have to beat a team of the calibre of the USA at some stage.

"We showed what we were capable of against Germany and, as long as we play to that standard again, I'm sure we'll pose America plenty of problems.

"It's a massive challenge, but it's also a massive opportunity. If we can beat the USA, it will probably be the best result in the history of the women's game.

"That's the incentive that'll be driving us on.