Big Phil adds steel

Meanwhile, at the world's most famous club, Cristiano Ronaldo dominates the FA Cup final with a brand of individual sorcery which makes him just about the most coveted kid in European football. Yes, Portuguese football is momentarily as fashionable as a Becks tattoo.

So now for the crowning glory. Euro 2004 is here, with their strutting neighbours Spain already beaten in the race to host it and with a team containing the final three survivors of their Golden Generation - Figo, Rui Costa and Fernando Couto - ready to grasp their last chance of annexing Portugal's first major senior title under the guidance of a world-beating mentor, Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Yet it isn't just about the football. In his short spell as manager, even the Brazilian Scolari has noted how the event seems designed as a statement about the nation's ambition in the modern world, to "provide a springboard for the Portuguese to say 'Ah, yes we can!". If this means intolerable pressure for mere footballers, you wouldn't guess from the laid-back feel to their camp just outside Lisbon at Alcochete. The other day Ronaldo rolled up with a new, seriously cropped barnet, explaining breezily: "I'm expecting to get all the way to the final. So to avoid it getting too long, I decided to get it cut short now."

For the moment, United's Harry Potter, who's played just seven games for his country all as a sub, knows he'll have to settle for an understudy's role to Figo and Simao Sabrosa, yet he's clearly ready to give it the full show-off treatment if he gets a chance to make an impact.

There is, of course, plenty of talk surrounding the camp about which of Mourinho's other old boys might be off to join full-back Paulo Ferreira at Chelsea. Deco, Porto's champion playmaker who can't secure a first-team spot ahead of Rui Costa - in itself another indication of Portugal's gifts - is still favourite to join him but shrugs that "our minds are completely on the national team".

Minds dare not wander with Scolari in charge. Ever since Brazil's World Cup winner declared that "I can't come to Portugal thinking I won't get to the Euro 2004 final", he's been stubborn, bloody-minded, impervious to criticism - of which there has been much - and even told the Portuguese FA president, who had dared to pass an innocuous comment on team selection, that "I make the decisions around here."

In truth, results under Scolari have generally been poor - his Portugal have played seven Euro 2004 finalists and failed to beat any - yet a nation seems to trust Big Phil to get it right as he did after a dismal World Cup qualifying struggle with Brazil.

Last September, the fans waved white hankies in disgust after Portugal got hammered 3-0 by Spain, a form line which still haunts the locals who are paying anything up to £400 on the black market to secure a ticket for next week's encounter. It's a derby which we're promised will eclipse any other game in the tournament for intensity, even Sunday's little Anglo-French spat.

"Some people here don't like my face," Scolari noted back then. Maybe, but they could be coming around to the idea that a Gene Hackman- lookalike barking orders at gifted underachievers may still be the only way to provide a steel coating for the skill.

"The minimum I'm asking of them is a place in the semis," said Big Phil.

Portugal, though, screams out for much more.