Just when it seemed Cristiano Ronaldo and his team were going to be given the cold shoulder in their opening game, substitute Conceicao scored from close range, sparking delirium in rain-lashed Leipzig.
Moments earlier, Ronaldo’s arm was adjudged offside as he headed against the post before Diogo Jota nodded in the rebound. But in the end, Portugal was not to be denied.
Ronaldo’s sixth Euros began with a reversal of the scoreline in the opening game of his first. It was 20 years ago that he made his major tournament debut at Euro 2004. Although the then-teenager grabbed his first international goal, hosts Portugal lost 2-1 to Greece. A few weeks later, they suffered even worse agony when the same opponents beat them in the final.
The Czech Republic seemed headed for a similar smash-and-grab raid when Lukas Provod gave them the lead with their first meaningful shot. An unfortunate own goal by Robin Hranac soon brought Portugal level, but Ivan Hasek’s side came agonizingly close to denying them victory.
The oldest swingers in town both started for Portugal. Pepe, at 41, overtook former Hungary and Crystal Palace goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly as the oldest player to appear at a European Championship finals. Ronaldo, at a mere 39, became the first man to contest six Euros. He was also extending his record number of appearances to 26. But the question was whether he could also add to his all-time landmarks of 14 goals and 12 wins.
So eager was the great man to get going that he was already several yards inside the Czech half when his team kicked off. And Portugal also came out of the traps fast, playing in a fluid 3-4-3 formation with Nuno Mendes as the left center-back and Joao Cancelo often inverting from wing-back into a midfield role. But for all their domination of possession and territory, they struggled to create clear-cut chances.
Between Ronaldo’s early mistimed header and his shot in first-half stoppage time that Czech goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek beat away, they did not have another effort on target. Unless you count Ronaldo’s effort from a Bruno Fernandes through ball that Stanek also saved, but the Portuguese captain looked to have been just offside.
Rafael Leao was Martinez’s man most likely and was agonizingly close to meeting a Fernandes cross on the only occasion that the resolute Czechs were really carved open. Leao himself became frustrated enough to earn a yellow card for diving from no-nonsense Italian referee Marco Guida.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s keeper Diogo Costa had absolutely nothing to do except watch Patrik Schick fail to connect properly with a Vladimir Coufal cross in a very rare Czech attack.
Nothing changed after the break. Fantastic headers by Tomas Holes and Tomas Soucek stopped Ronaldo nodding Portugal in front. Stanek made a routine save from a less-than-vintage free kick from guess who. The Czech defending bordered on the heroic.
And then, incredibly, they scored. Coufal tidied up after an attack broke down and teed up Provod to curl a delicious shot into the net off Costa’s right-hand post.
At last, Martinez made use of his star-studded bench, bringing on Diogo Jota, and the equalizer was not long in coming. But it came from an unusual and, for the Czechs, unfortunate source. Stanek saved Nuno Mendes’ back-post header but the ball ricocheted back into the net off Robin Hranac.
Stanek saved from Bernardo Silva and Vitinha. Soucek fired just wide at the other end as the game entered the final 10 minutes. Jota celebrated prematurely after grabbing what he thought was the winner. But Conceicao, son of former Portugal star Sergio, did the family proud with his late strike.
