Portugal take the plaudits as England head home

Portugal's 6-5 penalty shoot-out win was their just reward for dominating possession on Thursday and delivering nearly two hours of exhilarating attacking football.

On another night, England's defence might have held out for an extra seven minutes to deny Helder Postiga his equaliser for 1-1, Swiss referee Urs Meier might not have disallowed Sol Campbell's header and the roulette wheel of spot-kicks could have spun their way.

For long-suffering England fans, still waiting for their nation to add to the 1966 World Cup success, it will go down as yet another 'if only' end to a tournament.

Yet as the team's attention now turns to 2006 World Cup qualifying, England have plenty of positives to take out of a Euro 2004 campaign that might have lasted longer were it not for an injury to inspirational teenager Wayne Rooney.

Tournament success is sometimes the result of one player rising to an unprecedented level of performance and, in 18-year-old Rooney, England discovered a new match-winner.

The teenager won a penalty against holders France and scored four goals in two games versus Switzerland and Croatia before limping off after 27 minutes with a broken foot on Thursday.

His absence, coupled with Michael Owen's opportunistic goal after only three minutes, effectively left his team's hopes resting on their ability to defend rather than to attack.

Though their luck, and ability to mark opponents, were both found wanting when Postiga nodded home, England can still look ahead with a fair degree of optimism.

Rooney's recovery from injury and Rio Ferdinand's return from an eight-month suspension will clearly give England a boost in World Cup qualifying, though the central defender will still miss the opening games in Austria and Poland.

But England's new midfield arrangement with goal-happy Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard operating effectively in the centre, flanked by Paul Scholes and skipper David Beckham, failed to deliver the goods against the skilful Portuguese.

Like Owen, Beckham was expected to be England's leading performer, only to be relegated to a cameo role in what became Rooney's one-man show.

Beckham, as always, worked hard on the right flank but the 29-year-old's failure to overcome the mediocre form that dogged the latter stages of last season with Real Madrid did not help England's cause and he was largely a peripheral figure.

Beckham's club mates benefited with Zinedine Zidane's double strike in stoppage time turning a potential 2-0 England win into a 2-1 defeat and the captain's ballooned spot-kick against the hosts making for an equally embarrassing reunion with Luis Figo.

Save them, take them...it's all the same to Ricardo

Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo brought a touch of the exotic to the European Championship when he saved an England penalty before converting the spot kick that propelled the hosts into the semi-finals.

At 5-5 in the shoot-out Ricardo saved Darius Vassell's attempt for England. Nuno Valente was already making the dreaded walk from the centre circle towards the penalty area when Ricardo picked up the ball and waved him away.

He placed the ball and shot past David James to send the Portuguese half of the Luz stadium wild with delight.

Goalscoring keepers are common in South America where Paraguay's Jose Luis Chilavert scored more than 50 goals from free-kicks and penalties and Rogerio Ceni is regularly knocking them in for Brazilian club Sao Paulo.

In the less eccentric world of European football, they are a rarity.

"We'd talked about it before and decided that if it was necessary, I would take the kick," Ricardo said.

Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said he agreed.

"He takes penalties for Sporting Lisbon," said Scolari. "He had made the save and was confident so I gave him the chance to take the kick.

"I've seen him in training and his strike rate is very good."

Ricardo has been the regular goalkeeper for Portugal under Scolari while Porto's Vitor Baia has been surprisingly left out of the squad.