It may be being played in the impeccably neutral territory of Switzerland, but England's match against Argentina on Saturday will be a million miles from the anodyne exhibitions that have become habitual in friendlies under Sven-Goran Eriksson.

This will be not merely a clash of two of the great traditional footballing nations, but also of two cultures, cultures that have never got on.

The present bad blood may have its roots in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas conflict and Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, with matters compounded by Diego Simeones over-reaction to David Beckham's petulant flick of the foot in the 1998 World Cup.

But there has been ill-feeling since the sport was first introduced to Argentina by the British with the foundation of the Buenos Aires Football Club in 1867.

Although initially the game was confined largely to expats, it still evolved differently to football in Britain. When Nottingham Forest toured in 1905, for instance, all but two of an Argentine League representative side they faced had British names.

Nonetheless, Forests physical approach on a muddy pitch provoked resentment, something that was to become a feature of future tours.

Amid the frustration, though, there was a recognition that Argentine football was developing.

Samuel Allen, manager of the Swindon team that toured in 1912, for instance, was generally approving, but expressed a concern that local players "look on individual exploits as the main thing, and every time there was a chance to show clever work single-handed, it was taken."

Matters reached a head with the visit in 1929 of Chelsea, who were bemused to find local referees penalising them for shoulder charges, accidental handball and physical contact with the goalkeeper.

Worse, in their fourth game, against a Buenos Aires XI, they were pelted with oranges by a volatile crowd, which later, infuriated by a barge that the Chelsea director Colonel Crisp insisted wouldn't even have been a foul in England, invaded the pitch.

Most disgracefully, the home captain, Luisito Monti, who would

later win the World Cup with Italy, approached a Chelsea player with an arm outstretched as though to shake his hand, only to kick him so hard in the groin that he required treatment from a doctor.

Where English football revelled in the physical, Argentine football prioritised the subtle, the clever, the cunning. The Argentines saw the English as brutes; the English saw the Argentines as cheats. As Michael Owen put it this week, the Argentines are "streetwise".

The first meeting of the national sides, at Wembley in 1951, passed off relatively peacefully, England winning 2-1 thanks -- as if to prove the point about the superiority of power over tricks -- to two goals in the last 11 minutes.

Two years later, in Buenos Aires, their next encounter was far more violent, but heavy rain gave the (English) referee Arthur Ellis the excuse to abandon the game midway through the first half.

It was the World Cup quarterfinal in 1966, though, that really soured relations.

England won 1-0, but the games defining image was that of the Argentine captain Antonio Rattin lingering by the side of the pitch after being sent off after 35 minutes by the

German referee Rudi Kreitlin for "violence of the tongue".

What followed is generally remembered, in Britain at least, as having been an exhibition of Latin cynicism, yet Argentina actually committed 14 fewer fouls in the match than the home side.

Hostilities continued after the final whistle as the Argentine smashed down a dressing-room door and tried to attack the England players, while Sir Alf Ramsey, the England manager, in his post-match interview, described the Argentines as "animals".

Even without the Falklands, it is doubtful there would have been any coming back from that.

There was violence in a friendly at Wembley in 1974 as Emlyn Hughes was punched in the face, and then Maradona's trickery -- one piece illicit, one magical -- as Argentina won 2-1 in that 1986 quarterfinal.

In 1991, another friendly degenerated into fractiousness and spitting after a bad foul by England defender Mark Wright. Then came Beckhams red card in St Etienne, a demon exorcised with his penalty to beat Argentina in Sapporo four years later.

Little wonder Beckham admitted this week that "there's no such thing as a friendly against Argentina".