There is a strange tension in the Portugal squad that is out to trample on Welsh dreams tonight. They have very few players at their peak, and are instead a fusion of thirty-something veterans (Pepe, Carvalho, Ronaldo, Quaresma) and precociously talented youngsters (William Carvalho, Joao Mario, Andre Gomes and Renato Sanches). At the weekend, however, reports emerged which questioned the validity of including Sanches among the youngsters in the squad.
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Officially, Sanches is 18, and in this tournament has broken Cristiano Ronaldo's national records as the youngest player to both play and score at the European Championships.
A number of pundits in Portugal have questioned Sanches' age, with newspaper Jornal de Noticias conducting an investigation claiming that documentation existed confirming the player's birth date of August 18th 1997, but that the birth wasn't registered until August 22nd 2002 - a full five years later.
The report says that Sanches' father left his mother when the boy was five months old, emigrating to France - returning five years later to register the birth of his son.
Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho managed to wrap his club up in the debate also, as in March he called on the Amadora hospital where he was born to clarify once and for all the midfielder’s true age.
Sporting have today moved today to clarify their position on the matter. Among other things they have taken a bizarre stance against Miles Chambers, a journalist for goal.com. In the aftermath of the story breaking, Chambers wrote an article stating that Sanches has been 'subjected to a hateful and baseless smear campaign that has its roots in racism'.
To that, Sporting have released a bizarre statement on their website, and it has been translated by journalist and former Benfica TV commentator Patrick Kendrick:
In the statement, Sporting also threaten a journalist with legal action. I have translated it here #StayClassy pic.twitter.com/G0Pp68Ghzu
— Patrick Kendrick (@patrickendrick) July 6, 2016
Kendrick also alleges that the rumours began as an attempt by Sporting to destabalise Benfica:
For those who mindlessly retweet, the Renato DOB rumours originated from Sporting in an attempt to destabilise Benfica. Plumbing new depths
— Patrick Kendrick (@patrickendrick) July 5, 2016
