Emmet Malone on a player who will have a big influence on tonight's second semi-final
As Miguel wondered aloud yesterday how he and his team-mates might cope with Zinedine Zidane if the 34-year-old reproduces the form he showed against Brazil on Saturday night, the French might just have similar concerns about Deco, the Barcelona midfielder who returns from suspension for tonight's game in Munich.
To date the impact made by the 29-year-old on this World Cup has been limited by a scarcity of opportunity for which he himself has been at least partly to blame. Injured for Portugal's first game he was rested for their third and then missed the fifth, the quarter-final against England, after being sent off against the Dutch.
Against Iran, though, he was his side's (and the game's) outstanding player, scoring his third international goal in 37 appearances and powering the Portuguese to a win that guaranteed them a place in the knockout stages of this competition. His performance that night in Frankfurt lent weight to the argument that the Brazilian-born midfielder has managed to eclipse the ageing Luis Figo as the team's most gifted player. The Milan-based star's consistency here, he has played in all five games and shone in four, underlines his importance but having lost pace and a little of his power over the last couple of seasons he rarely dictates the flow of a game these days in the way his international team-mate can.
His performances at club level had long established Deco as a top-class player but it was only as Portugal swept to the final of the European Championship two years ago that he replaced Rui Costa as national team's chief playmaker in central midfield and came of age internationally.
Having arrived in Portugal at the age of 18 he had only been granted citizenship the previous year and made his debut in March 2003 against, ironically enough, his native Brazil. Having come on with an hour played, he scored a fine free-kick that helped his adopted country to a memorable 2-1 win.
"I always believed that I would get my chance with Brazil but little by little the idea sank in that I had been in Portugal for a long time and that I should give something back to the country that had helped to shape my football," he recalls. "The people never stopped asking me to play for the national team and that touched me," he adds.
By then he was already renowned as a key part of a Porto side about to achieve great things under Jose Mourinho. He had originally travelled from South America to play for Benfica but the club's then manager, Graeme Souness, showing the sort of intuition that would serve him well in the transfer market during years that followed, apparently didn't rate him and the player had to endure a spell in the lower divisions before bouncing back and completing a move to the Dragao Stadium.
Mourinho built his side around the diminutive midfielder and was rewarded for his faith as Porto went on to win a UEFA Cup, two league titles and the Champions League during the next three seasons. On the day Portugal faced Greece in Lisbon two years ago Barcelona confirmed a deal worth €21 million with Porto to bring the then 27-year-old to the Nou Camp.
The impact was immediate and he has since won another two leagues as well as a second Champions League title in Paris in May. Last year the club's Dutch coach, Frank Rijkaard, observed that, "Deco is the barometer of our season, when he is in form the quality of the game rises, when he is not so good the team as a whole performs less well".
As his manager suggests, the player does have a tendency to drift out of games while his enthusiasm for shouldering his share of the team's defensive responsibilities is not always matched by his timing in the tackle. At his best, though, his movement and passing can help those around him to open up opposing sides. Both Luiz Felipe Scolari and Rijkaard tend to use him in the centre of a three-man advanced midfield from where, for Portugal, his role is to provide support to the lone striker while finding space for the wide men, usually Figo and Ronaldo, to run into. He is also particularly dangerous from set pieces around the area.
Against England on Saturday his creativity and intelligence were clearly missed as Portugal struggled to assert themselves going forward but against France his tackling may prove just as important and he is likely to provide the first line of defence in the event that Zidane again threatens to take the game by the scruff of the neck.
Like Zidane, he has repeatedly stated that his ambition for his team here in Germany is a place in the final but with several of the more fancied sides now departed, he may be starting to believe that Portugal can finally lift their first major international trophy. As Miguel openly acknowledged, Scolari's men may need Zidane to have an off night if they really are to reach a World Cup final for the first time but the Real Madrid star will not be the only "magician" on the pitch and these past few years it is Deco's box of tricks that has often proven the more startling.
