Portugal carry hopes of people and pundits

Euro 2004 Final/Portugal v Greece: All the world may love an underdog but as they prepare for this evening's final of Euro 2004 at the Lisbon's Stadium of Light, Otto Rehhagel and his giant-killing Greek team seem intent on proving that other adage about us each also being able to have too much of a good thing.

Rated by the bookies a month ago as 80 to 1 outsiders, the Greeks may have won many admirers with their achievements over the past three weeks but few will have lost their hearts to a side that battled and braved its way through the last three weeks while so many other have sought more attractive ways of overcoming their opponents.

Portugal, once they found their stride, have been amongst the competition's most attractive sides to watch and, if they can reproduce the sort of lively attacking football that caused so many problems for England and the Netherlands in their previous knock-out games, Luiz Felipe Scolari's side would surely be popular winners of what has been a memorable tournament.

If, on the other hand, the Greeks' undeniably impressive blend of defence, discipline and raw determination enables them to cause another great upset by beating the hosts tomorrow then they will leave for Athens on Monday as the most unlikely European champions in the game's history and perhaps, outside of their own country, the most unloved too.

As he looked forward to the contest yesterday Rehhagel, a slightly eccentric coach whose transformation of this side's fortunes is a truly remarkable achievement, said he was anticipating a "great" game. The reality is that in the aftermath of his side's defeat of the Czechs on Thursday night the likelihood of the tournament ending on such a high note looks now to have passed.

What we should be in store for instead is an intriguing encounter between two vastly experienced coaches with equally strong but starkly different views on how their teams should play.

The pair have their similarities all right. Both have shown the flexibility to adapt to each individual challenge as it presents itself and, when necessary, to disregard the established stars of their adopted homelands along the way.

Fundamentally, though, when it comes to the style of football they look for from their teams their philosophies could not be that much more different and we would do well to hope that even Rehhagel's success to date does not bring the well organised strangulation of attractive football back into fashion amongst a string of the continent's lesser sides.

Having tinkered with both his strategy and his combination of stars in the earlier stages of this tournament Scolari is expected to stick with much the same line-up and approach that has served him so well over the past week and a half.

The form of Pauletta remains a major cause for concern for the Brazilian and a nation of 10 million Portuguese, who will unite in a single eruption of joy tomorrow night if their side succeeds in winning their first major international crown.

But Scolari, having proven the shrewdness of his judgement when guiding Brazil to the World Cup two years ago, has so far kept faith with the PSG forward.

Every other member of the team, however, has improved as the tournament has progressed with strong showings by the likes of Jorge Andrade, Maniche and Cristiano Ronaldo followed, eventually, by a display of real quality from Luis Figo last time out.

If at their best again tomorrow evening then the Portuguese should simply have too much speed of thought and deed for the Greeks although this will not be the first time that the demise of Rehhagel's side has been predicted during the past few weeks.

The German will be without left-sided midfielder Georgios Karagounis who picked up his second yellow card in successive games on Thursday. In his place, Stelios Giannakopoulos, is likely to start and the Bolton midfielder has impressed sufficiently on his three appearances to date to suggest the switch will not greatly handicap the Greeks.

What may prove a problem is that in contrast to Thursday, when they had been resting for two days longer than the Czechs, they have this time had 24 hours less that the Portuguese to recover from the 105 minutes of hard-fought football it took to get them past the last four stage.

But the Portuguese, for all the pressure they may feel from their people, should emulate the Dutch in 1988 who lost to the USSR in their first game only to bounce back to defeat the same side 2-0 when the title was at stake.

PROBABLE LINE-UPS

GREECE: Nikopolidis; Seitaridis, Dellas, Kapsis, Fyssas; Basinas, Zagorakis, Katsouranis, Giannalopoulos; Charisteas, Vryzas.

PORTUGAL: Ricardo; Miguel, Horge Andrade, Ricrado Carvalho, Nuno Valente; Maniche, Costinha; Luis Figo, Nuno Gomes, Ronaldo.

Referee: M Merk (Germany)