With players of the quality and invention of Rui Costa, Joao Pinto, Thierry Henry and Youri Djorkaeff, to name but a few, in action tonight, nobody would be foolhardy enough to suggest the Euro 2000 semi-final between France and Portugal, arguably the two easiest sides on the eye in the whole tournament, will rest solely on the duel between a balding number 10 in the blue corner and a frowning number seven in the crimson and green.
Yet such have been the masterful contributions of Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo to the party this past few weeks that it does not seem unrealistic to suggest that, on current form, we may not only be watching the two best players in the tournament but perhaps the world going head-to-head in the King Baudoin Stadium.
The way their team-mates talk, there is no room for discussion. When a player of Christophe Dugarry's gift says that, sometimes during a game, he's felt like stopping playing 'just to watch Zidane', you remember that even among France's majestic orchestra, there is only one conductor. When Portugal's Rui Costa, a pretty marvellous old-fashioned No 10 himself, asserts that 'Figo is the best player in the event', he demands no argument.
As for the subjects of these effusive reviews? Well, one of the more delightful similarities between Zidane and Figo is that they dismiss them as pleasant but meaningless. Down at the French training ground, Zidane gets asked if he can be compared with Michel Platini and smiles: 'Oh, that's going too far.' Figo has more than once recently been told he's the best around and responds every time quizically: 'Who's saying these things?'
They can afford to come across as modest because they are utterly assured of their own value and do not need to be told. They just get on quietly with being brilliant as they have done from the moment Zidane unzipped the Danish defence with an exquisite through ball for Henry to score and from the moment Figo began the dismantling of English hype with the 30-yarder which, arguably, has not been topped since.
Big players come up big when it is needed. This pair have been monumental when required. That strike when they were two down to England, swears Portuguese coach Humberto Coelho, is the only reason Portugal are still in the tournament. Then Figo delivered the perfect free-kick for Constinha to head home the last-second winner against Romania and combined trickery with utter precision to set up Nuno Gomes for the pair which killed off Turkey.
Zidane simply ran the show against Spain, with everything from that exquisite curling free-kick to that extraordinary 'now you see me, now you don't routine' where he takes out two defenders by doing a 180-degree pirouette over the ball without actually moving it. Doubtless, there are thousands of kids at this moment trying to replicate it without success throughout Europe's playgrounds.
That's the joy of this pair. They have the capacity to make the remarkable seem workaday. After unravelling the Turks, Figo spent the last half an hour strolling past their crestfallen defence as if he were on a routine training exercise. Whenever France lose their way, according to Bixente Lizarazu, 'we just give it to Zidane and he works something out'.
Figo, the younger of the pair by six months, may have the edge in explosive speed off the mark and deadly attacking intent, while Zidane, 28 last week, may be ahead in creative vision. According to the Portuguese defender Dimas, who played behind Zidane at Juventus, comparisons are invidious because 'they are the best at their job in different areas. Figo in one-against-ones and Zidane at transporting the ball'. Like trying to choose between Nijinsky and Shergar, all you can say is that here are two thoroughbreds at their peak with the ability to make the world-class players around them sometimes appear like selling platers.
If they perform to their capabilities tonight in a match which offers the prospect of free-flowing adventure, a place in the final may yet come down to how well their attacking team-mates work with the plentiful ammunition which they can provide and to how capably the opposition's defence can cope. In both departments, one suspects the French seem more blessed. For, if you perm any two from Henry, with a brace of man-ofthe-match awards under his belt already, Djorkaeff and Nicolas Anelka to run at an ageing Portuguese defence marshalled splendidly so far by Fernando Couto but rarely tested, you suspect they could experience more joy than Gomes may find when he tries to rattle the imperious Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, Laurent Blanc and Lizarazu who, as a quartet, have never lost together in 24 games for France.
Gomes has shown immense potential here, certainly lively enough to put paid to England and Turkey, yet the venerable Portuguese complaint about not having a world-class goalscorer in their ranks still looks as if it holds true. If they'd had Henry on the end of the dazzling work from Figo and Rui Costa against Turkey, they would have scored a hatful, not just two.
Even if the Portuguese have already put paid to their old accident-prone image here, with their 'golden generation' of youth world champions having at last flowered into a thrilling, cohesive unit, does history still dictate that the old order of European football will again be upheld?
In Marseilles almost 16 years ago to the night, another terrific Portugal team were minutes away from reaching the European Championship final, leading 2-1 in extra-time, when the genius of Platini, making one and scoring another, undid them cruelly. It was a classic, but, ultimately, epitomised the 'so near yet so far' tale of Portuguese football.
In the stands that evening, a young kid got carried away with all the excitement. One day, vowed the 12-year-old Zidane, he'd be up there too. Sure enough, now when he looks at his FIFA player of the year award from '98 and the video of his two goals which won a World Cup, he can afford to think he's not done too badly.
In international terms, the fact is that Zidane has been a winner in a way that Figo, who hasn't landed a bean for Portugal as a senior, can only dream of. The fear is that Portugal's hero may still have to keep on dreaming after tonight.
