A night of mayhem and confusion, of futures and pasts dragging each other in different directions, and at its climax a goal of pure catharsis for the Group F favourites. Portugal, one of the tournament favourites, are away: a poacher’s goal by the 21-year-old Francisco Conceição sealing victory in the first minute of injury time after coming off the bench. It was tough on the Czech Republic, so close to what would have been a heroic point until a stout defence calamitously gave way at the last. Robin Hranac’s own goal had given Portugal a route back into the game, and now as Pedro Neto crossed, his feet got stuck the loose ball bouncing perfectly for Conceição to finish. And ultimately Portugal needed a little fortune and a little character to gild their dominance of possession and shots: going behind to Lukas Provod’s goal having wasted numerous chances, five of them falling to the ponderous Cristiano Ronaldo. But they will be stronger for this experience, for this epic challenge in epic rain, the kind that puts a little extra juice on the ball and lends the whole occasion a pleasingly cinematic quality. A slippery surface and an extremely slippery Portugal. Under Roberto Martínez this is a team that have learned to shift shapes and revolve patterns in real time, and at their best they can play utterly mesmerising football. Here Bernardo Silva was occasionally a third centre-back, occasionally the highest man up the pitch, occasionally popping up on the left-wing. João Cancelo was a left wing-back out of possession but essentially went rogue whenever Portugal got the ball: deep-lying midfielder, winger, centre-forward. In a way, Portugal are the anti-England: a radically different take on how to accommodate a squad of luxuriant attacking talents (and it’s worth noting that João Felix, Diogo Jota, Gonçalo Ramos, Matheus Nunes, Rúben Neves and Conceição didn’t even make it into the starting line-up). You don’t fit them into a system, you make them the system: or rather you let them make it for themselves, intuiting and reacting and using their innate footballing intelligence to plot their way through the game. When it worked, it was sublime. Bruno Fernandes ran the early periods, a low cross just out of the reach of Rafael Leão, a delicious reverse through-ball setting Ronaldo clear for a shot that was saved. Shortly afterwards Ronaldo played a neat backheel to the rushing Vitinha, whose effort was blocked. Nuno Mendes and Rúben Dias both had dips from distance. For their part the Czechs were putting in a stirring defensive shift, from their striker Patrik Schick to their goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek, who made several good saves. And towards the end of the half the Czechs began to gather some momentum, enjoy a little counter-play, realising that the optimum time to strike was in the seconds after Portugal had lost the ball, and everyone was still working out where they needed to be next. As for Ronaldo, the top scorer in the Saudi Pro League was beginning, as he so often does, to sense a Ronaldo-shaped hole in proceedings. But even if we consider the things he can still do rather than the things he can’t, the prodigious leap isn’t quite there any more, the finishing lacks its former venom and even a second-half free-kick looped harmlessly into the hands of Stanek. The trouble with making everything the Ronaldo show is that his teammates, sensing their own peripherality, begin to slacken their own intensity a little. And with an hour gone, and an innocuous cross swirling over their penalty area, Portugal were fatally slow to react as David Doudera chased down the loose ball by the left corner flag. The ball came back to Provod, whose curling shot from 22 yards was the latest in a series of brilliant long-range efforts at this tournament. To their credit, Portugal refused to panic. They simply continued working their patterns, brought on Jota and Gonçalo Inácio to change up the left flank, and within minutes they were level. It came after good work by Nuno Mendes, freed by Inacio’s introduction to get further forward – at the back post. Mendes headed over Bernardo Silva’s cross, Stanek sprawled across to push it away, and Hranac watched in horror as the ball thudded off his knee and in. With a few minutes left, Ronaldo hit the post with a header, substitute Jota bundled it in, a brief melee ensued in the goalmouth as Jota tried to reclaim the ball so he could do a baby celebration and that – we thought – was that. In fact, to the amusement of absolutely nobody, Ronaldo had strayed offside, and perhaps the Czechs felt the hard part was over In fact the heartbreak was still to come: Neto twisting and wriggling down the left, crossing hopefully, Hranac freezing, Conceicao applying the last rites.