Euro 2016: Portugal's defence-first mantra could be the perfect fit for this risk-free European Championship

Portugal went nearly two hours before scoring a goal that secured their first win of Euro 2016 and a quarter-final appearance

Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates Portugal's 1-0 win over Croatia (Getty)

Portugal have only won one game in the European Championship and that was one in which they scored their first and only chance after almost two hours of defending and waiting. They are not playing in the way fans are used to seeing Portuguese teams play, with invention, imagination and midfield quality. But in this open Euros of closed football, Portugal look like a perfect fit.

Portugal go to Marseille on Thursday for a quarter-final against a Poland side with whom they have much in common: strong organisation, physical power and one of the best goal-scorers in the world. It has been enough to get them this far and they certainly have a good chance of making the Lyon semi-final for which they would be well-placed too. In the course of the 27 seconds between Rui Patricio saving Ivan Perisic’s header on Saturday night and Ricardo Quaresma scoring his, Portugal went from being the most fortunate of the third-placed qualifiers to very plausible finalists.

That Portugal did so playing minimalistic, reactive football is perfectly fitting with a tournament where that has been the trend. Croatia had been the best footballing team of the group stages and yet in Lens on Saturday Portugal just sat deep and shut them down. Croatia could not find a way through and soon stopped believing in their ability to do so.

It was Portuguese faith in the strategy of their own manager Fernando Santos which gave them the edge, as right-back Cedric Soares explained afterwards. “We prepared the game well,” he said. “Our strategy was strong. We waited for the mistake and in the end we scored one goal and it was a fantastic, amazing feeling. When you believe in something you are closer to achieving it. Our team believes very much that we can achieve something here.”

Santos has spent much of his career working in Greece, with the big clubs there and the Greek national team, and he has brought something of that low-risk football to Portugal, even it means not making the most of the talented players they have.

“Santos is a very intelligent manager,” Soares said. “He observes the game and he gives us the best information. I think we showed we were very well prepared for this game and that was the key. We were very intelligent, we were cold and when the chance came we scored.”

Ricardo Quaresma celebrates after scoring the winning goal for Portugal against Croatia (Getty)

That, in short, is the game that many teams have brought to France this month. It might not be entertaining and certainly some would like to see them make the most of their great creator Joao Moutinho. But Santos used his bench well, better than Ante Cacic, bringing on Renato Sanches who launched the counter that won the game and Quaresma who converted it.

Croatia could only wonder how they had managed to fold so badly in what should have been another winnable game afterwards. They were an excellent team who lost faith in themselves and Vedran Corluka sounded exasperated afterwards when he condemned Portugal as lucky and not good enough to win the whole thing.

“They came here trying to defend,” Corluka said. “They waited for their chance and in the end they got it. It’s football. We deserved the win more than them but they were lucky.” Corluka said that Portugal were not good enough to win the tournament, but in knockout football that is not always exactly how it works.