Misfiring Rivals In Search Of The Quality Of Compromise

Didier Deschamps needs a lone trophy to finish a unique grand slam. He has won the World Cup and the European Championships as a player, the World Cup as a manager.

- RICHARD JOLLY

Euro 2024 may allow him to complete the set; he would have done so already but for Portugal and for a team who may have out Deschampsed Deschamps.

In the eight years since Euro 2016, when Portugal won their only major trophy, against France in France, the Deschamps way has become more apparent: it isn’t necessary to excel in a group stage or to make statements with the quality of the football. Games can be won by moments, clean sheets, set pieces, unlikely figures.

France were arguably the best team in Euro 2016. Portugal did not win at all in the group stages, then progressed via a 117thminute decider, a penalty shootout and a victory over a Wales team who overachieved to reach the semi-finals. They beat France 1-0 with another extra-time winner: from Eder, a forward whose Swansea City career produced no goals and his time in a Portugal shirt just five.

If it sets the scene for another rematch – they drew 2-2 in the Euro 2020 group stages – there is a sense that rivalries are being renewed in Hamburg this evening. There are survivors aplenty from 2016 – for Portugal, the man of the match Pepe and Cristiano Ronaldo, who went off injured and became an auxiliary coach in the technical area, Deschamps, Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud for France.