Three things I learned from sleeping with the Portuguese National Football team.

A few weeks ago I bought tickets to the UEFA Nations League final. I planned to take my Dad, who lives in Portugal, as a treat.

Unfortunately I didn’t plan much else. So when I looked online before I left, Primavera and the Football meant accommodation across whole city was booked out.

In the end I went with a Spa on the coast a few miles out of Porto. It led to one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

I was waiting in the hotel lobby for my dad to arrive when a coach pulled up and Christiano Ronaldo got out, along with the Portuguese national team. They had come to the spa to relax and prepare for the final, along with me and my dad.

I’m not going to pretend I made friends with these guys. We nodded to each other in the lobby, as strangers in hotels do.

But I saw a fair bit of the squad in the days before and after the final. I watched them carefully, seeing how they prepared and watched them even more carefully as they squarely beat the team that squarely beat England.

It was interesting to see how the European Champions and arguably the best football player of our lifetime prepared for a cup in their hometown. A cup that they ended up winning.

Three things stood out to me on how the winners behaved.

Family Values

The players ate every meal together, they stayed on site, and stayed in rooms next to each other even though some of the players played for Porto and had big places of their own in the city. Their kids played with one another in the lobby. Wives and mothers were ushered through security and hugged by the coach. Parents and grandparents came visiting and sat for long hours catching up with the players. The hotel became their home. It felt like less like a football team and more like a family gathering.

The team actively included these families in their extended family. They were humans, first and workers second. And because of this they worked better.

Humility

There were an increasing number of fans gathered at the hotel over the three days I was there. Kids mainly, their mothers dressed up to the nines, their fathers pretending not to be interested. The players uniformly posed for selfies and signed shirts every time they passed through.

On the day of the final I woke up early saw them walking on the beach together, talking hanging out, like friends do. Just spending time together in a nice place. Ronaldo was at the back chatting to the coach Fernando Santos, who managed Ronaldo at sporting Lisbon back when Ronaldo was still a brilliant teenager, before he became the best.

Considering each of his feet are made from gold and he is a god to anyone who appreciates football, he looked so diminutive, so normal. A bandy legged bloke making jokes and mucking about on a beach with a boss he’d known since he was a kid. Just walking on a beach with his mates.

The rest of the time he laid low. He had scored three goals in the semi final his 53rd hat trick for club and country, a tally that took him to joint top international goal scorer ever. At the final he had a quieter game, he is an old man in football terms now, but he called and encouraged to the younger players and when he got the ball the stadium collectively gasped.

Portugal won the final pretty easily. His was the first name ever on carved on that trophy.

A fan hanging round at the hotel told me that on the way back from the stadium they were driving behind the team bus. There was a disabled boy at the side of the road with a homemade sign that said Ronaldo on it. The coach stopped. They let the kid on the bus for a while to chat to the players and meet his hero.

Discipline

These players were quiet polite and respectful, to a man. There was no lads night, no showing off, no indulgence. I would expect this during the tournament but after the win I expected some kind of party at the hotel.

My dad and I were waved through crowds of fans and came to see the bar empty. During the course of the night we went for dinner then hung out there, a few players passed through, some had a quick drink at the bar and they were all given a Sagres ‘champagne’ bottle to take home.

The Portuguese Primeira Liga is a minnow compared to the whale of the Premiership. And as an economy and political force Portugal are a lot smaller than us. But we, in turn, are far smaller than the blocs we would have to compete with alone. They understand the new reality of football just as they understand the economic and political reality that we have chosen to ignore. A vote against Europe is a vote for economic irrelevance and political isolation. To compete at a world stage, it’s all about teamwork.

Their reaction to Europe’s challenges has been as stoic as Britain’s has been shrill. While they share our anti austerity feeling, and have felt the pain more, they have been patient and pragmatic, implementing ‘sensible fiscal policies’ in the years of a massive bailout and recession that were the fallout of the financial crisis and their own debt crisis. The Portuguese were hit a lot harder by the financial crisis. And by many accounts have dealt with it very well. With help from Europe of course.

At the Final, between Portugal and Holland. England fans draped their flags all over the stadium for an England team that were knocked out of the competition and were on their way home.

They jeered at players and chanted ‘football’s coming home’ without apparent Irony. Or perhaps they saw the irony. That it, football, had already come home with the team that easily beat the team that easily beat England and won the European Cup and the Ueafa Nations Cup back to back.

Football went back home with Portuguese. They took the cup to the hotel that evening with me and my dad. The fans clapped and cheered, there were no drunk, overweight sunburnt, shirtless men bellowing to assert what was left of their masculinity, no racist chants, no gloating, no violence. No need. They’d won.

In football terms the UK left Europe before. Before 1985 English sides claimed seven European Cups in nine years. We were then banned from European competition, for 5 years, for hooliganism. On reentry, English clubs didn’t win again for a decade and we have only won 5 of the last 35.

Back at the hotel the first ever Nation’s cup Winners, who had just won in their city, the day before their national day, in front of the whole country, were totally relaxed, subdued even. After a debriefing with the coach they packed up their things and chatted with family in the lobby. Most shook hands with one another and thanked the staff and got into their cars to drive home. The bar was closed by midnight.

Portugal is the UK’s oldest ally. Rather than force the closure of their schools through hooliganism, sing racist chants, urinating in their streets, trashing their property and throwing bottles at their police, we would do well to learn from our old friends.

Before I went to bed I went outside to watch Santos, the coach, get on the bus. He looked knackered. Someone called out his name and jostled to take a picture. He stopped to let them take the picture. Then he said ‘Obrigado,’ to the fan who has jostled him, got on the bus and they drove off.