It’s been a busy day at the Portuguese Football Federation’s state-of-the-art Football City complex, with Fernando Santos and Rui Jorge naming their Seleção squads for the Confederations Cup and the U21 European Championship respectively.

As regards the senior squad, the main news was the omission of two of Portugal’s Euro 2016 heroes, Renato Sanches and Eder. The former drops into the U21 squad after his difficult first season at Bayern Munich, while Eder misses out after a substandard year for his club side, Lille.

Meanwhile Rui Jorge announced what on paper at least looks like a stellar squad for the U21 tournament in Poland.

U20 national team coach Emílio Peixe has named the Portugal squad that will travel to South Korea for the World Cup starting later this month.

“Our history in this competition is a factor of motivation but also adds to our responsibility,” said Peixe, who was a key player when Portugal won this trophy in 1991, when he was voted MVP in the tournament held on home soil.

The squad is made up mostly of Benfica, Sporting and Porto youth players – 18 of the 21-man squad come from Portugal’s Big Three – and hopes are high of a good showing given many of the players are the same who won the U17 European Championship in Azerbaijan and reached the semi-finals of the U19 European Championship in Germany, both last year.

The summer of 2016 will be fondly remembered for all eternity by Portuguese football fans as the Seleção finally lifted their first trophy, in France. 

With a healthy smattering of young players playing key roles in the triumph, hopes were high that the conquest would usher in a golden era for the national team. That has not changed, and the introduction of fresh blood into the Seleção, such as Porto striker André Silva and Sporting winger Gelson Martins, has arguably made Fernando Santos’s squad even stronger.

However, as the 2016/17 campaign heads into the home straight, a worrying number of Portugal’s Euro 2016 heroes have had seasons to forget, raising doubts as to what kind of shape the Seleção will be in at next year’s World Cup.

Portugal 2-3 Sweden

Cristiano Ronaldo scored one and helped create another as Portugal let a 2-0 half-time lead slip and fell to defeat against Sweden in an international friendly at the Estádio dos Barreiros.

In stark contrast to the game against the Hungarians on Saturday evening, Portugal were incoherent and were deservedly beaten by an inexperienced Swedish side, with coach Fernando Santos making no attempt to hide his anger at the end of the ninety minutes.