Portugal v Scotland: Beleaguered Scots return to site of 1993 humbling

Like the Poles and Robert Lewandowski, Portugal’s main man is still around.

At the age of 39, Cristiano Ronaldo may finally face Scotland for the first time. He scored his 900th career goal in their 2-1 win over Croatia on Thursday and, while he had a disappointing Euro 2024, the forward’s roll of honour is spectacular.

Five Champions League titles, multiple league titles in England, Spain and Italy, 11 major international tournament appearances, five Ballon d’Ors alongside the Euro 2016 and Nations League titles with his country.

Ronaldo is a machine and, if he plays against Scotland, it will be his 214th cap. No man has amassed anywhere near that tally and perhaps never will.

He has played in a few generations of Portuguese talent – from Luis Figo and Rui Costa at the beginning to Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes in the present day.

The midfielders who play on both sides of the Manchester divide are crucial to what Portugal do.

In truth, they should probably have amassed more than the two titles that they have collected in the past eight years across the previous these two decades.

Roberto Martinez, who crossed swords with Clarke during his time in charge of Belgium, once again has an embarrassment of riches from which to select, with his team emerging from a keenly contested battle with Croatia on match-day one.

Current undisputed number one Diogo Costa of Porto became the first goalkeeper at a European Championship to save each penalty he faced when he did so in their last-16 win over Slovenia in Germany.

Silva’s Manchester City team-mate, Ruben Dias, is regarded as one of the best defenders in world football, with Paris Saint Germain left-back Nuno Mendes having fully recovered from an injury-ravaged season to star at the finals while club-mate Vitinha is another who has emerged over the past three or four years.

Chelsea’s Pedro Neto and AC Milan’s Rafael Leao supplemented Ronaldo against the Croats and have incredible speed, which will cause its own problems for a Scotland defence that has leaked 31 goals in 13 games of this miserable run.

His side having lost the most winnable game of this group against Poland at home, Clarke now faces up to the most difficult fixture in this campaign and desperate to avoid some of the individual mistakes that have been regularly punished in the past year.

Life in Nations League A can be unforgiving as life in Lisbon has been previously for the Scots.