How Renato Sanches Gave Portugal a Glimpse of the Present and Future vs. Poland

Portugal seem to believe that playing the long game is the best route to Euro 2016 success.

Now into the semi-finals in France, Fernando Santos’ team have yet to win a match in 90 minutes at the tournament. They have drawn with Iceland, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and now Poland before, in the latter two cases, getting the job done later on.

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If that’s the plan, then it’s working. But as they reached a fourth European Championship semi-final in the last five tournaments—a record they haven’t received enough credit for—it was impossible not to think of the future and what this tournament grounding would do for the man of the moment in Marseille.

Teenage midfielder Renato Sanches—finally given his first start in a major tournament by Santos—ensured there was a youthful energy about Portugal that wasn’t there before. In the short term, it bodes well for Wednesday’s semi-final, and in the long term, it hints at more semi-finals to come.

Having already signed up to play for Bayern Munich next season, the 18-year-old is having the time of his young life out in France, and what he brought to the Portugal side against a spirited and obdurate Poland can’t be overstated.

As a brooding Cristiano Ronaldo was marshalled by Polish centre-backs Michal Pazdan and Kamil Glik—is there an argument to start him out wide in the semi, perhaps?—and both Nani and Joao Mario were subdued, the cut and thrust of this Portuguese performance had to come from elsewhere.

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Step forward Sanches, who seemed more than happy to take the responsibility on his shoulders.

But that’s the great thing about young players: They're rarely inhibited by the situation and surroundings they're in. Sanches was playing in a European Championship quarter-final, but to him, it was just another game—just another chance to show what he can do.

Consider England’s ignominious exit from this tournament against Iceland earlier this week, when the only player who seemed fearless in the closing stages was the teenage substitute Marcus Rashford. In the final five minutes, he received the ball on the left flank and beat his man three separate times, albeit too late to save his side.

Contrast that with the recent backlash towards his team-mate Raheem Sterling, who seems to have lost his youthful abandon since the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and indeed Wayne Rooney, who was never more effective in an England shirt than when he was a marauding teenager at Euro 2004.

The then-18-year-old Rooney became the youngest goalscorer in European Championship history at that tournament in Portugal, only to see his record broken four days later by Swiss winger Johan Vonlanthen. On Thursday night, Sanches took up a position at No. 3 on the list and became the youngest-ever scorer in the knockout rounds.

And there was something so refreshing about his goal.

Moments earlier, Portugal right-back Cedric Soares took up a dangerous position just to the right of the penalty area. But instead of taking a touch to get the ball out of his feet and trying to get a shot away, his first thought was to feed the ball into Ronaldo—when his pass was blocked by a scrambling Polish defence.

Portugal’s captain is a tremendously gifted footballer—one of the best the world has seen—but his team-mates tend to over-rely on the lightning rod, which is what made Sanches' act all the more refreshing.

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Displaying the clear thinking of youth, he simply wanted to take a chance in the 33rd minute, and the deflection that took his shot into the bottom corner was a just reward for a player doing what others seemed unwilling to do.

Trailing in the game since Robert Lewandowski’s opener after 100 seconds, it was crucial that Portugal got back into it when they did, and they had their talented teen to thank for that.

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And it wasn’t just about his goal. Confident on the ball and always looking forward, Sanches turned in a fine performance that later included a perfectly taken penalty. Portugal advanced 5-3 on spot-kicks, after Jakub Blaszczykowski blinked first and Ricardo Quaresma’s supersub status continued.

UEFA voted Sanches as the man of the match, and the youngster has likely secured his spot in Santos’ semi-final starting XI when that comes around next week. And next week is all that matters at the moment.

His youthful, wilful abandon is bound to last until then. Maybe it can last until the final and beyond, too?