"I expect a very open end-to-end game, although not a crazy game," said Fernando Santos ahead of Portugal's match against Austria tomorrow in the French capital.
With both sides coming off a poor opening result, it is easy to agree with the Seleção coach.
Tom Kundert looks at the questions Santos will be pondering as Portugal attempt to get their campaign on track after a false start at Euro 2016.
Will Quaresma feature?
This is the question being asked by most Portuguese fans. The extravagantly talented Besiktas winger was in superb form in the pre-tournament friendlies, and may well have started against Iceland if he hadn't felt a twinge in his thigh in first days of training at Portugal's Marcoussis base.
PortuGOAL.net asked Santos if Quaresma, Nani and Ronaldo could all take to the field at the same time. The Portugal coach did not give a conclusive answer, saying we would have to wait and see, but admitted it was a possibility.
The man himself. Good question @PortuGoal1 #por pic.twitter.com/UZaZUyHqhK
— Portista (@FCPortoGlobal) June 17, 2016
Other team issues
Santos also reiterated during the press conference that he would be "freshening up" the team, albeit adding that "there won't be a revolution".
In defence, the most obvious choice for a change would appear to be at right-back, with Cédric Soares having a good chance of replacing Vieirinha, who played well in the first half against Iceland but had a second half to forget and was partly culpable for the Iceland goal.
In midfield also, the substandard performances of João Mário and João Moutinho could open the door for Adrien and Renato Sanches. Holding midfielder Danilo picked up a back injury against Iceland, and although he is back training with the squad Santos may prefer to replace him with William Carvalho in a like-for-like change.
Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo
Moving away from team issues, a recurring theme at the press conference were questions about Cristiano Ronaldo, including his controversial comments at the end of the Iceland game. An increasingly exasperated Santos - at one point he simply looked into the desk in front of him and laughed as yet another non-football question about his star man was asked - defended his captain, pointing out that the Icelandic fans, coaches and players showed themselves to be far from bastions of fair play, trying all they could before and during the game to unsettle Pepe and Ronaldo.
"We have a saying in Portugal quem não se sente não é filho de boa gente [which roughly translates into he who does not react is not from good families], and after what Ronaldo endured during the game, including from the Iceland bench, it was natural he said some things in response," explained Santos.
My own take on yet another conveniently fabricated Ronaldo controversy. So Ronaldo is a bad loser? What's the surprise here? Winners usually are. I'm yet to see the day when Ronaldo not being a paradigm of virtue does not become the main story. As I am writing this article from the Parc des Princes Euro 2016 Media Centre, journalists from all countries are scurrying for translations of the exact words Santos said in relation to Ronaldo (good luck translating that saying, by the way!).
Predicted Portugal XI
Turning back to the football, it is once again a very tricky task second-guessing Portugal's starting XI. I would argue that is a good thing. In Paulo Bento's time you were guaranteed to get it 100% right, but Santos is happy to swap things about, and to be fair to Bento he has a much deeper squad of quality options to allow him to do so.
So at the risk of being wildly wrong, I'm guessing Santos will go for this line-up against Austria:
Rui Patrício, Cédric Soares, Pepe, Ricardo Carvalho, Raphael Guerreiro, William Carvalho, Adrien, João Mário, André Gomes, Nani, Ronaldo
by Tom Kundert
