Portugal's perfect stage

EURO 2004 will stand alone as the greatest football festival the world has seen if it goes halfway to fulfilling the hype that has fuelled the build-up to this latest celebration.

Claims that winning the championship is more demanding than lifting the World Cup itself has only ever been challenged with any conviction in South America. Even Brazil are likely to admit the general level of competition is uniformly more searching than the global event.

Yet even a preparation as meticulous and as efficient as Portugal's cannot guarantee success. Speculation on the possible disfigurement of a sports festival as joyous and as spectacular as this by the lunatic fringe of England followers has figured too consistently to allow for any casualness.

Memories of the ugly scenes that accompanied England's relatively brief journey through Belgium and Holland in the last tournament four years ago are still too vivid and too raw.

The absence of any similarly outrageous behaviour in the last World Cup was not relevant Portugal is much more accessible for these dangerous anarchists than was Japan and South Korea.

This tournament deserves to be an unqualified success, if for no other reason than the work of the Portuguese. They have accomplished an enormous amount, not least the building or refurbishment of 10 stadiums that should now be a lasting legacy to the enlightened work of the Portuguese FA and the Government.

The fact that this huge building programme was accomplished over five years and for an accumulated estimated cost of €750m is staggering. Especially so when placed in the context of our own lack of initiative in this regard in Ireland.

Just as assuredly, the contrast, is a reflection of the immeasurable damage done to our sports infrastructure by the lamentable fragmentation of the general sports family in our small island.

This is hardly a time to indulge in introspection, however. Not when some of the best players in the world are gathered to compete for personal and national pride, when thousands of enthusiastic fans are flocking to wonder at the style and scale of Portuguese architecture and their acute appreciation of what is needed to provide a setting sensitively designed to inspire and uplift.

The general feel-good factor that surrounds the opening of Euro 2004 owes much to the huge popularity of the game in Portugal. Everywhere the festival feeling is evident, in remote tiny villages high in the hills, in the many ancient fishing ports that dot the long Atlantic coastline of this sea-going nation and in the big commercial towns and cities.

The national colours are on general display, from rooftops and shop windows, motor cars, vans and trucks. Everywhere you turn there is evidence of Euro 2004, of Portugal's pride in hosting the event and of their burning ambition to win it.

Favourable evaluations of Portugal's potential owe much, of course, to a desire to compliment such gracious hosts. They also confirm the quality of Portugal's selection and of the inspired leadership of manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, the man who led Brazil to win in the World Cup of two years ago.

Portugal have never won a major championship at senior level and few would begrudge them success now. Their players are universally admired for their technique and skill and they are not unfamiliar with success.

Some of these players enjoyed success at underage level in the Youths' World Cups of 1979 and 1981. They have since laboured unsuccessfully to fulfill the rich promise of those years, to live up to their billing as "the golden generation".

This will be a last opportunity for such as Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Fernando Couto and in front of their own fanatical fans they will surely find inspiration. They have graced the European club scene in so distinguished a manner over the past decade that their quality is unquestioned.

"Portugal are very good, they are an excellent team" said Sven Goran Eriksson, "their football skills are such that it seems they were born with Brazilian blood in them." Only their temperament is questionable. It betrayed them four years ago when they could not handle the controversy that surrounded a decision to award a penalty to France at a critical time of their semi-final.

Surely they will draw courage and confidence from the outpouring of emotion from their fans when they kick-off the tournament tonight against Greece in Porto at 5pm. Then it's on to Russia and neighbours Spain in a week of frenzied activity.

Portugal have the talent to win it, of that there is no doubt. But so too have champions France, a pragmatic Italy, an unpredictable Netherlands, an inconsistent England and an efficient Germany.

This does not allow for the emergence of a surprise winner, of the emergence of a team like Denmark who were given a wild-card entry to Euro 92 and won it. Could the Czech Republic be surprise winners this time? Why not?

The many intriguing questions will be answered over the next four weeks. Ideally Portugal will go all the way to the final to sustain the enthusiasm of the locals and reward their enterprise. They deserve nothing less.