Angola v Portugal: African history will hang heavy in the air as Angola make their World Cup debut against their former colonial masters, Portugal.
Much as neutral fans love to support the underdogs, it is hard to hold out much hope for the Africans against an experienced Portuguese team who are unlikely to repeat their disastrous 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championship starts, which yielded unexpected defeats by the USA and Greece, respectively.
Coached by the man who won the last World Cup, featuring talent like Deco of Barcelona, Luis Figo of Inter Milan and Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United, Portugal could be one of the (relative) surprise packets of these finals. Given their tendency to lose themselves to self-doubt, it is just as well that they start against an Angola side which has probably overachieved in getting this far.
It says much about Angola's attitude that their Federation has already expressed the hope that their World Cup appearance will be as much about improving the image of their once-civil-war-torn county as about doing well on the pitch.
Among the Angolans who may do well are their captain and striker Akwa, scorer of 31 goals in 68 games, injury-prone striker Mantorras of Benfica and defensive midfielder Andre of Kuwait SC.
With all due respect to them, however, Portugal to win.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)