Artful Deco plays down polemics

Euro 2004 News: It is now official. Portugal owe 20 to 30 per cent of their success at Euro 2004 to the fantastic support shown by the home fans. That, at least, is the opinion of Portuguese midfielder Deco who, speaking at the team camp in Alcochete, outside Lisbon, told The Irish Times yesterday: "I have lived and played in Portugal for eight years and I've never seen anything like this, not even when Portugal were playing at the World Cup finals. There is no doubt that our fans are a terrific boost for us and if you ask me to put a percentage on it, I'd say it could be anything from 20 per cent to 30 per cent."

Not surprisingly, a large number of the Euro 2004 media corps turned up yesterday at the Portuguese team HQ in the Academica Sporting, the new, purpose-built training centre opened by Sporting Lisbon just two years ago. Situated in a bucolic agricultural backwoods of olive trees, watering systems and sleeping cows, the "Academica" at first glance seems far from the madding pressures of Euro 2004.

Inside the hot and sticky marquee that serves as a media centre, however, the temperature is literally and metaphorically on the rise as the countdown to tomorrow's semi-final in Lisbon against the Dutch begins.

A Dutch colleague wanted to know about Deco's "feelings" regarding the Netherlands: "My feelings? My feeling is that we are going to go through. Why? Simple, because at the moment, we are a better team than Holland".

It hardly requires extraterrestial powers of perception to detect a note of solid self-belief from the diminutive Deco, already a national hero in Portugal, notwithstanding his Brazilian origins, because of his key role in Porto's Champions League win this season:

"I don't think that any individual player will hold the key to the semi-final, I think it will be a team effort. At the moment, we have huge self-confidence and that can prove decisive."

Did he agree, asked another Dutch colleague, that Dick Advocaat's side were not playing typical, attacking Dutch football? "Is it not true that Portugal are playing more like Holland than Holland themselves?"

"I don't think Holland are playing badly. They're in the semi-finals and if they've got this far, they must have done something right. However, we're not playing like Holland used to, we're playing like Portugal used to play, in other words, well."

The 26-year-old Deco was, of course, at the centre of some unexpected polemics on the eve of this tournament when team captain and national idol Luis Figo complained about the introduction of "naturalised" Portuguese players into the squad, saying he did not feel it was necessary to look outside Portugal for new talent. Given that Deco is the only such "naturalised" player in the squad, it looked like two of Portugal's biggest names were about to have a very public, very destructive go at one another.

Deco, however, has diplomatically played down the issue, thus extinguishing the potential forest fire even after the first cigarette butt had been thrown. The question raised its ugly head again yesterday and once more the Deco fire brigade was in action: "I'm not going to speak about this issue anymore. Too many things have been said and written about it."

Likewise, the mighty Spanish press corps wanted to know if it was true he was about to sign for Barcelona. Again Deco of the Foreign Office answered: "This is not the moment to be talking about my club career. To do so would be to show a huge lack of respect for the national team."

Given that he is, of course, Brazilian and given also that team coach Felipe "Big Phil" Scolari is also Brazilian, we wondered if Portugal's current run at Euro 2004 had been perceived back home in Brazil as a triumph for Brazilian football? "I'm not in Brazil now but I know the Brazilians are supporting us but they're not doing that because of me or Scolari, they're doing that because of the traditional links and sympathy between out two countries. When Brazil play in the World Cup, for example, the Portuguese are always up for them."

What did he feel about the failure at Euro 2004 of some of Europe's traditionally strongest nations, such as England, Germany, Italy and Spain? Even here, the canny little midfielder was not about to fall into any traps: "I can't really say, I can't really comment on games that I've only seen on TV and I don't really want to talk about other teams. France, I suppose, disappointed and England were unlucky because they came up against us, because we've been strong."

You get the impression Deco feels the Dutch are about to get "unlucky" too tomorrow night.