Sideline Cut: One thing is clear about England. When they exit from major soccer tournaments, they take something of the very point of those tournaments with them writes Keith Duggan

Thursday evening's game against Portugal provoked almost as much interest in this country as had Ireland been playing. England becomes our surrogate team in major competitions except their progress is monitored with an intense conflict between a sneaking fondness for individual players and the instinctive antipathy the residual trappings of Empire provoke in all former colonies.

Regardless of how many of us may delight in the inevitable comeuppance they experience at the great summer soccer festivals, you have to say this for England: in failing to win any of the major tournaments since 1966, they have nonetheless left their mark on them. The group match against Brazil in 1970. The Maradona exhibition of 1986. Cameroon, Gascoigne's tears and Waddle's penalty in 1990. Gascoigne's goal against Scotland and Andreas Müller's mocking strut after the penalty shootout in 1996. Beckham and Argentina in 1998. The whipping by Portugal in 2000. Ronaldinho's humiliation of David Seaman in 2002. They rarely creep away unnoticed from tournaments.

Long after the crowds have left Portugal this summer, the tournament will be remembered for Zinedine Zidane's 90 seconds of genius against England and the host nation's spellbinding two-hour engagement of wit and heart and national pride against England.

Thursday night's contest was so riveting and unpredictable that the lonely sight of Luis Figo being "retired" from the match was forgotten in the blink of an eye. In a lesser match, the controversial replacement of a national icon during the most important game ever staged in Portugal would have been the subject of lasting debate. But because the game was so deep and furious, the great man was forgotten almost as soon as he disappeared down the tunnel, understandably dismayed. Minutes later his replacement, Helder Postiga, fired the headed goal that brought Portugal back into the game.

That sequence was a frightening reminder of how fast and heartlessly sport moves on. Figo started that match as a leading light and was yesterday's man before it even ended. Had Portugal been defeated on Thursday night, it is hard to imagine that Figo would have played again for his country. As it is, he prepares for the semi-final in the knowledge that he is expendable: that his country can and will win without him. That will either inspire or break him for the remainder of the tournament.

But Figo was a footnote in an extraordinary evening. It was a night of sport when the sum total of the drama completely outstripped the cult of the individual. Hence Wayne Rooney was ferried from the narrative before he had the chance to make any sort of impression and David Beckham was reduced to the artisan's role that his many vociferous critics believe to be best suited to his repertoire of skills.

The argument that Beckham's place among the global superstars owes much to masquerading and hype was fuelled greatly by the England captain's mortifying experiences in Portugal. And the deterioration of his game even as Christian Ronaldo grew and grew for Portugal suggests Alex Ferguson remains the master of his own shrewd faculty for reading the form of a football player.

Much of the bitter enjoyment we in this country experience when watching England lose derives from the fact we are devoted to mainstream English television. On sultry nights, with a place in a semi-final or better at stake, the airwaves are a-quiver with Bulldog fervour and the unmistakable echo of the Rule Brittania mindset.

You can hear it in the bleating of Ian Wright and occasionally when John Motson lets his guard down. It is not so much what they say as how they say it.

Then comes the aggressive rendition of God Save the Queen, the bare-bellied, tattooed thug singled out in the crowd, the thousands of white flags bearing the names of godforsaken English towns: it all smacks of pomposity and grandiose expectation. The inevitability of seeing that deflated - with the random torture of penalties the most exquisite method of execution - never palls for us.

And yet Sol Campbell was the very definition of restrained dignity leaving the field last night. Had an Irish team suffered a goal disallowed in the circumstances in which Campbell was denied, our sense of outrage would have been unbearably shrill.

Michael Owen, a curiously detached figure throughout this tournament, was level and generous in his post-match comments. Stephen Gerrard, another player who failed to reach his combustible potential in Portugal, applauded the stricken English fans and left the field. England accepted the worst possible kind of loss as gracefully as possible.

England are like the tipsy drunk at a large party: sometimes affectionate, sometimes shouting the odd profanity from the corner, spilling beer and sitting on the hors-d'oeuvres - the guest everybody moans about until he totters off into the night. Then everybody realises the party isn't as much fun without him. Politer maybe, but big swing.

In England there is an unshakeable belief that soccer is one of their gifts to the world.

Their players are among the most recognised on the globe due to the relentless marketing of the Premiership. The Premiership is a beast, a culture in its own right; it is not an exaggeration to state it has changed the nature of Irish winter life, particularly in provincial towns.

To English players, it brings fame and fortune. Because of that there is a persistent craving to assert some vague sense of manifest destiny at international level in the way a few of their great city teams have managed at club level.

Circus England arrives in tremulous expectation and we delight in the same lesson being delivered to them again and again, particularly by relatively humble and sassy nations like Portugal. There is enjoyment to be had in seeing their limits exposed: the lack of imagination, the leaden touch. It was painfully evident in the penalty shootouts. The penalty is not so much about beating a goalkeeper as believing you can place the football precisely where you want it. The Portuguese were simply more at ease with that.

The weird thing is that many of us will go back to cheering on the likes of Scholes, Rooney and Frank Lampard when the new Premiership season begins in August.

At club level, they are assessed on their individual merits. But wearing three lions on their shirts, they just become part of the big white monster.

In their wake, England leave a distinctly Continental and aristocratic climax to Euro 2004: French flair, Dutch guile and all the usual guff.

It will be refined and cultured and, we hope, brilliant, but in this country, none of us will really care who wins the thing now that the one country we can't countenance winning has left with the cries of the Portuguese equivalent of "That'll learn ya" ringing in their ears.

It is not hatred we exhibit towards England on nights like Thursday but rather a helpless pleasure at witnessing their misfortune. It is a strange thing, sort of a wilful celebration of our own smallness of mind. But you have to admit: when poor old England get ditched from major tournaments, you kind of miss them.

Next up, Germany 2006. Forty years of hurt never stopped them dreaming.