Euro 2016 - Renato Sanches shines just in time to ease the load on Cristiano Ronaldo

Five years ago, and perhaps fewer, this would surely have been Cristiano Ronaldo’s moment. Portugal and Poland were deadlocked four minutes into extra-time and, with space virtually non-existent, there was finally a chance to cut loose. Ronaldo had open grass to hare into, a clear gap between the opposition centre-backs and only 40 yards between him and the goal, but the moment evaporated as quickly as it had arisen. Before the afterburners could be fired up, Grzegorz Krychowiak – who was outstanding throughout Poland’s Euro 2016 – had caught Ronaldo cold, chasing him and tackling superbly. It was a fine piece of defensive play but there was a time when this situation would have been a done deal.

It might have been another of those nights for Ronaldo but for Portugal, at least, there was a triumphant end – along with some genuine excitement for the future. That came in the form of a fine goal, albeit deflected off Krychowiak, and sparkling all-round performance from 18-year-old Renato Sanches, and the youngster’s emergence could not be better timed. Portugal have been unhealthily reliant on Ronaldo for too many years but now, six months shy of his 32nd birthday, there are signs their captain is starting to slow up. Those coruscating bursts past defenders have been notable by their absence in this tournament and he has certainly been conserving his energy off the ball, too – an obvious instance coming in the second half of normal time when he opted out of pursuing a pass from Nani that may or may not have brought worthwhile reward.

Ronaldo will not go on forever and it may be that, in the medium term, he is reinvented as something closer to an orthodox centre-forward than he has ever been. Eventually there will need to be a changing of the guard, and the process will be made far easier if, as in Marseille, there is clear evidence that somebody is capable of taking on the mantle.

The signs are good. Sanches has a confidence that does not seem too far removed from that of his skipper. Ronaldo took the first penalty in the shoot-out but Sanches did not hesitate in volunteering to attempt the second when coach Fernando Santos sought those with suitable courage.

“I said I’d go second, the boss trusted me and I was confident to shoot,” said Sanches of his clinically-taken spot kick. The initiative shown by a player making his first start for the national team marked him out as something above the norm, as did the fact that he has now won two man of the match awards this summer despite not being a fixture in the side.

There is clearly more to come. Santos, who used Sanches primarily in the right-sided position from which he cut in to score, believes he will express himself more fully in time, something that will probably be facilitated by the education he will receive at his new club, Bayern Munich.

“I don’t think the Renato you see today is the one we’ll see in the future,” Santos said. “He’s still growing and he has to take all his qualities and put them all on the pitch. It’s my job to help him do this. He reminds me of the great Portuguese player [Mario] Coluna.”

That is high praise – Coluna was a marvellous midfielder who captained their star-studded side en route to third place at the 1966 World Cup – but the talent Portugal have on their hands is clear enough. The immediate priority, though, is to make best use of the here and now. Whether they face Belgium or Wales in the last four they will surely need to be more clinical than against Poland and again it comes back to the Ronaldo question. He was simply not himself on Thursday night, air kicking one clear chance, miscontrolling another and then, found by a beautifully scooped Joao Moutinho ball over his shoulder, fluffing perhaps the most eyecatching opportunity of all. His fine performance against Hungary showed he must never be discounted but the concern is that there have been too many blanks so far.

The alternative view is that Portugal have made it to the last four without their best player firing on anything close to all cylinders. They have certainly looked defensively sound over the last two games, Cedric’s misjudgement in the build-up to Robert Lewandowski’s opener apart, with Pepe at his imperious best. They exude a tournament savvy that not many teams at Euro 2016 possess; it could well prove the key ahead of individual brilliance and that theory would be put fascinatingly to the test if they face a Belgium team that often looks less than the sum of its parts.

“The dream is getting closer and anything can happen now,” said Ronaldo long into the Marseille night. “I’ve always said, and I don’t hide it, that I would love to win a title with the national team. We are on the right road.” Even if the suspicion lingers that we have seen the best of Ronaldo, the evidence Sanches provided suggests that the latter statement is correct.