Group A

Not so long ago, ahead of a European Championship, Sir Alex Ferguson wrote in these pages about the footballer he called “the most brilliant attacking player in Europe over the past season”. It formed a large part of his detailed analysis of Portugal’s threat at the tournament. His conclusion was that this squad carried significant prospects, but that “no other team in the competition will rely as heavily on one man as the Portuguese”.

That player, Ferguson continued, fitted his vision of what Manchester United should aspire to. “He is a marvellous amalgam of talents,” he wrote. “He has superb balance and is comfortable with either foot, he can beat a man almost effortlessly and has the acceleration to leave that opponent for dead. He is a wonderful crosser of the ball and a scorer of goals. And he likes to float and can apply his killer influence anywhere.” Alas, the United manager revealed, that man had proved too expensive for United. Later in the summer he set a world record transfer fee by joining Real Madrid.

Echoes? The footballer Ferguson was describing in The Sunday Times in June 2000 was Luis Figo, a winger who had begun his career at Sporting Club in Lisbon and would be named European Footballer of the Year that December. Portugal did indeed look to Figo as their figurehead in 2000, but exceeded Ferguson’s expectations in the tournament. They reached the semi-finals, bowing out against the eventual champions, France. By the next European Championship, they were strong enough to make the final, at home, where they finished rather more quietly, defeated by Greece.

Figo retired from international football after Portugal finished fourth at the last World Cup, and said no when it was suggested to him by head coach Luiz Felipe Scolari that he might consider returning for Euro 2008. At the very least, Portugal would then have gone into the tournament with a second figurehead, who in his day accumulated something close to the attention and admiration of Cristiano Ronaldo.

This is Ronaldo’s year even more than 2000 was Figo’s, and it is hard to imagine what can prevent the Manchester United player collecting the game’s major individual awards for 2008 even with seven months of it still to run. What would absolutely secure Ronaldo his Ballon D’Or, or the World Player of the Year prize, is a Euro 2008 gold medal to go with his Champions League and Premier League first places. And if Ronaldo has taken up Figo’s baton for the Portuguese, they should be encouraged by the accumulated momentum they have behind them. Portugal’s progress through the last three European Championships reads: quarter- finals, semis, then losing finalists. One more step, and they become the best.

But it is still worth asking the same question Ferguson posed eight years ago: how far are they a one-man team? On the evidence of their qualifying campaign, quite a lot. Portugal scored 24 goals in their 14 fixtures, and Ronaldo netted eight. Nobody else managed more than three, in a group including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Armenia that should have offered one or two evenings at the coconut shy.

Portugal’s shortcomings often arise from a shyness at centre-forward. Nuno Gomes, of Benfica, brings along his 68 caps and 28 goals from a 12-year international career. Tottenham Hotspur supporters will again scratch their heads in bewilderment at Helder Postiga’s continuing presence where he remains understudy to a position which, on form, will be filled by Hugo Almeida, who at least scored regularly for Werder Bremen during the last Bundesliga season.

That’s if Ronaldo does not lead the line. As at Manchester United, there are few better headers of the ball in the Portugal squad and such is the balance of resources at Scolari’s disposal that there is an argument for asking the world’s most prominent young footballer of the moment to occupy the position of No 9. Portugal’s squad overflows with good wingers and with expensive full-backs to support them.

If Ronaldo is to be as well served by his colleagues as he is by Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez at United, it is as likely to be from the flanks as anywhere else. There, Scolari picks from United’s Nani, Porto’s Ricardo Quaresma or Atletico Madrid’s Simao. Supplement those with a pair of right-backs who between them have cost Chelsea around £30m, Jose Bosingwa and Paulo Ferreira, and the still more talented right full-back Miguel, of Valencia, and this should not be a team playing too narrow a style of football.

In qualifying, Portugal often seemed less than the sum of their parts and sometimes downright turgid. Poland, who won their group, took four points off them; Armenia even took one. Eventually they drew 0-0 against Finland in their final fixture to secure their involvement.

Now they must beat the better of the host nations, the Swiss, will beware the Czech Republic and begin their challenge on the opening day against Turkey. It is hardly a fixture into which Ronaldo will slip incognito. He would have it no other way.