Soccer: On Thursday they celebrated Corpus Christi here, where the festival remains a national holiday. A quiet day in the country's cities ended with the traditional processions. It was as if a nation was taking one long, last, deep breath before surrendering itself to an altogether different kind of religious experience.
For more than five years the locals have been waiting for this day. Building began ahead of the 1998 Expo festival. They have revitalised sections of their cities, rejuvenated their transport and communications infrastructures and, needless to say, redeveloped their stadiums far beyond the point of recognition. Direct investment on preparing for this tournament is put at close to €1 billion, but the total spend on related projects is a multiple of that.
The benefits are everywhere to be seen, particularly in Lisbon which is booming after the construction of a new metro, roads, shopping centres, various tourist attractions and two new grounds. With almost every building and billboard, it seems, carrying some poster, picture or flag with a connection to this European Championship, the city resembles a giant football theme park in which the fun is about to begin.
And there will be no shortage of willing participants. Estimates vary, of course, but almost all agree over 100,000 visitors arrived in Portugal yesterday, with the same number again expected by tomorrow evening. The travelling supporters will disperse up and down the country, but the gaze of the host nation will initially fall on one just place, the city of Porto, where a team built around what is left of the country's Golden Generation, players like Figo, Rui Costa and Fernando Couto, but now managed by a Brazilian, Luiz Felipe Scolari, will set about the unenviable task of fulfilling the dreams of their people.
At recent major championships, teams playing on home soil have successfully kept the festival feeling alive into the closing days. England, the Netherlands and South Korea all fell just one step short of the final, while in 1998 the French did rather better than that in the World Cup.
How long the Portuguese party lasts will depend in part on Scolari's ability to repeat his success with Brazil at the World Cup two years ago with his newly adopted country. "Big Phil", as the 55-year-old coach is known, has, somewhat ironically given the venue for this afternoon's game, generated some resentment among supporters of Champions League winners Porto because of his preference in recent games for others over stars like Nuno Valente, Deco and Vitor Baia (the goalkeeper was not even included in the 23-man squad) from the club's hugely successful team.
Victory this evening over a well organised but only modestly talented Greek team would silence the critics, at least for the moment, and almost guarantee the hosts a place among the quarter-finalists. Anything less and the pressure will swiftly mount on the team ahead of Wednesday's game with Russia.
In each of their last two championships the Portuguese have, despite their promise, made a distinctly petulant exit. They remain a team of considerable potential, though, one that possesses a huge amount of individual talent and one now run by a manager who has shown he knows what it takes to win on the biggest stage of them all.
This looks to be a remarkably open tournament: the French start as favourites, with the Italians not far behind, but almost half of the teams have some reason to believe they can emerge victorious. The Portuguese, however, who would be the first team to win the event on home soil since the French 20 years ago, may yet provide a final chapter to the story that began in 1989 with the first of two successive World Youth Championships.
Even if they do, the atmosphere may be spoiled along the way if the scenes of mayhem caused by English fans in France six years ago and Belgium two years later are repeated on the streets of Lisbon during the weeks ahead. Some 50,000 England fans are expected in the capital ahead of tomorrow night's Group B encounter with France, and FA officials put the number of approved supporters who have bought tickets from them at just over one third of that.
A few dozen were prevented from leaving Britain over the past couple of days, but thousands were already on the streets of Lisbon yesterday where they were, as ever, making their presence felt. Even before any outbreak of trouble, however, there have been recriminations between the UEFA officials and their English counterparts, with both attempting to shift the blame for any violence.
Under UEFA rules, each association is responsible for the behaviour of its fans, but the tournament organisers have sold an estimated 80,000 tickets over the Internet to purchasers with addresses in England, a process the FA argues has totally undermined measures it adopted with the aim of keeping the trouble-makers away.
Largely ignoring their protests, UEFA president Lennart Johannson issued a thinly-veiled warning to the English yesterday. "We are better prepared this time," he said, "and the British government knows 80 per cent of the people travelling to Portugal. I therefore hope that nothing will force us to take any drastic action, such as throwing a team out of the competition."
Tickets for the French game, however, have been changing hands on the streets for around €600, adding to fears over segregation inside the ground. It also suggests thousands of English will settle for watching the match on big screens in towns and cities around the country.
Asked what his message to the fans was, England captain David Beckham insisted there was little need for him to speak on the subject. "I don't need to say too much," he said. "No other country in the world," he continued, "have fans that support their team like ours do."
Well, to be fair, he's not wrong there.
