The France lesson behind Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Euro 2024 hopes

This repeat of the 2016 European Championship final will be decided by the decisions of two managers seeking glory and redemption

Both managers may compromise their tactics for a star player: France because of Kylian Mbappe’s reluctance to press, Portugal because Martinez’s team are in danger of looking like a Cristiano Ronaldo ego project rather than a meritocracy (AFP/Getty)

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. Euro 2024 may allow him to complete the set; he would have done so already but for Portugal and for a team that 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 117th-minute 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.

So after an unwhelming start to their bid in Germany, it sets the scene for another rematch – they drew 2-2 in the Euro 2020 group stages – with rivalries renewed in Hamburg on Friday 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.

Didier Deschamps continues his quest to complete international football by winning the European Championship as a manager (AFP/Getty)

But there may be another revenge mission, albeit for a manager whose words are too honeyed to suggest as much. When France won a 2018 semi-final in Russia, permitting Deschamps to emulate Franz Beckenbauer by winning the World Cup as captain and coach, it was against Roberto Martinez’s Belgium: 1-0, with a set-piece goal from Samuel Umtiti that was one of only four he scored for France. Belgium played the better football. France won. Thibaut Courtois accused them of playing “anti-football”. Eden Hazard added: “I would prefer to lose with this Belgium than win with this France.”

Deschamps, it is safe to say, would not share that view. His reputation for dullness can be exaggerated: France’s 4-3 victory over Argentina in 2018, for instance, was a classic. But some of their most eventful games have come with a loss of control: 3-3 against Switzerland in Euro 2020 or the 2022 World Cup final with Argentina. There is a sense that Deschampsball involves shutting a game down and waiting for a magical moment.

And Euro 2024 has had none, given that France’s three goals are a penalty and two own goals. They have only conceded once – to Poland – but contrived to end up in the wrong side of the draw as a result, and now face Portugal. And yet, if few doubt that Martinez lies on the purist side of the spectrum, they head into a quarter-final without a goal in 244 minutes. If France copied Portugal, now Portugal seem to be borrowing from the France blueprint.

Deschamps may consider a tactical tweak, bringing Antoine Griezmann into a central role (EPA)

Both managers may compromise their tactics for a star player: France because of Kylian Mbappe’s reluctance to press, Portugal because Martinez’s team are in danger of looking like a Ronaldo ego project rather than a meritocracy. Mbappe has scored one penalty in the tournament; Ronaldo has missed one, prompting his tears at half-time in extra time against Slovenia, even if he did convert in cathartic fashion in the subsequent shootout.

Their teams look like cases of potential yet to be fully realised. There is a simple diagnosis for Portugal; that Ronaldo is holding them back. The French manager’s search for balance continues: after omitting Antoine Griezmann against Poland, he brought him back on the right for the last-16 win over the post-Martinez Belgium. Now, without the suspended Adrien Rabiot, Deschamps may have to go from three defensive midfielders to a mere two and give Griezmann more of a central role.

For both managers, a heavyweight quarter-final might bring back memories: for Deschamps, of knocking England out of the 2022 World Cup, for Martinez, of his finest result and greatest tactical triumph in international management, Belgium’s 2018 win over Brazil. Yet that showed the kind of flexibility – with Romelu Lukaku moved to the right and Kevin de Bruyne playing as a false nine – that is impossible when everything is built around Ronaldo.

Roberto Martinez has built his team around Ronaldo but will that be a help or hindrance against France? (PA Wire)

Beating Brazil, like Belgium’s Euro 2020 win over a pre-Martinez Portugal, was a sign the smiling Spaniard is not some bluffer who has failed upwards. He has, though, been given two very gifted groups: the Belgian golden generation who he took to No 1 in the Fifa rankings for three and a half years, albeit while the France of Deschamps had the more significant status as world champions, and now Portugal. As Ronaldo and Pepe are double the age of Joao Neves, it is scarcely a generation but Portugal, like France, are so packed with talent that they look like potential winners; if, that is, one can see off the other and then Spain or Germany.

Martinez’s veterans could have a pertinence. The 41-year-old Pepe may not want to be isolated in a sprint against Mbappe. Ronaldo is in his final attempt to win the European Championships on the pitch rather than from the bench. For Deschamps, however, the prize is arguably bigger still. Because, but for Portugal, he would already be the man who had completed international football.