The Euro 2004 Football Championships.
Portugal v Russia - preview
by Mark Buckingham - Last Updated 16 Jun 2004
Portugal and Russia will not wish to contemplate the implications of defeat when they clash at Estadio da Luz on Wednesday.
After both sides lost their opening games of Euro 2004 on Saturday, a second successive reverse will ruin their prospects of reaching the knockout phase.
Hosts Portugal will be desperate to shed the nerves which afflicted their performance in losing 2-1 to Greece in the tournament's curtain-raiser.
Luiz Felipe Scolari takes his squad to the capital Lisbon looking to somehow ease the burden on his players, who are under pressure to at least advance to the semi-final stage.
Scolari has no injury worries for the contest, which will be the first time Portugal and Russia have crossed swords in a European Championship finals.
Portugal pipped the then-Soviet Union to a spot in the 1984 tournament in France with a 1-0 victory in the final qualifier and Scolari would happily settle for a repeat of that scoreline.
The key question facing Scolari, with a full-strength squad to select from, is how many changes he should make from the team which started the defeat to Greece.
The risk of making wholesale alterations to the side is that those players drafted in could suffer from the nervous tension which hindered the team on the opening day.
If there is to be a change, the most likely swap is for Scolari to bring in Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored the late consolation against the Greeks, for Simao Sabrosa.
Other considerations for Scolari are whether to start with Deco instead of Rui Costa, after the pair played a half each at the weekend.
The Portuguese media are also speculating that Ricardo Carvalho, Petit and Nuno Valente could come into the team at the expense of Fernando Couto, Maniche and Rui Jorge.
Russia will be forced into at least two changes from the team which lost 1-0 to Spain as they seek to end a run of eight games without a win at the European Championship.
Coach Georgi Yartsev has expelled Alexander Mostovoi from the squad following the veteran playmaker's caustic comments after the loss to Spain.
Dmitri Loskov is most likely to take his place while Roman Sharonov is suspended after his red card against Spain, with Alexei Bugayev expected to partner makeshift centre half Alexei Smertin at the back.
Yartsev was also furious with the performance of Rolan Gusev against the Spanish and could drop the CSKA Moscow midfielder in favour of Andrei Karyaka.
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