Tournament to write home about

Rui Costa (Portugal)

OUR victory over Croatia on Wednesday suddenly seems to have put Portugal on the map. We played beautiful football at times and the result was very good for us. The spirit of the team is high. Now we must play the Czechs in Birmingham in today's quarter-final. It is good in terms of our progress in the competition to have avoided Italy, but I would have liked to have played against them from a personal point of view, with so many friends in their team.

I have seen very little of the Group C games, because we have either been training or playing at the time, but we have had one of our coaches at all the matches so we will be listening to him and watching videos of the Czechs as we prepared.

It seems a long time since we left Lisbon on 25 May. The weather in Ireland, where we won 1-0 in a warm-up game, was very cold compared to the summer temperatures in Portugal of 28C. But the weather in England has been getting better. Being here for Euro 96 has been an amazing experience, especially after we missed the World Cup in America in 1994. The people are very friendly to the team.

Our first hotel in Sheffield was very nice, but a bit enclosed. But while we have been playing at Nottingham we have stayed for 10 days in a Derbyshire hotel which was once a 13th century priory. But it has all the modern facilities such as a gymnasium and a swimming pool. It even has its own golf course and the quiet and the open spaces have helped us to relax.

The staff at the hotel have done everything to help us. They gave the team a private games room with a pool table where we could go for some entertainment. They even brought in a bar-football machine which we had asked for! Our own chef has been made welcome too. All teams take their own cook with them to cater for the special diets of the players. We have had our favourite foods - salt-cod, hake, melon, Cruzeiro mineral water - brought up in shipments from Portugal in a refrigerated container lorry.

We have been training at Ilkeston Football Club, where lots of local people have come to watch us. One of the junior schools gave us a big good luck card the other day which we greatly appreciated. On Thursday afternoon we moved out of Breadsall Priory to take over the hotel and training facilities which the Italians have been using before they were knocked out.

We have been reading about the arguments between the England team and their press. Sometimes the Portuguese press have been hostile to us, but not as extreme. But now that the team is winning everybody seems happy and in harmony.

The Czechs will be difficult but we hope to win. In any case, the Portuguese FA will be dedicating today's match to the suffering children of East Timor at the hands of Indonesia. Football is not everything.

Pavel Srnicek (Czech Republic)

WE never thought we'd get this far. People are surprised at how well England have done in the tournament, but we in the Czech Republic team are amazed to be playing in the quarter-finals, especially after being drawn in such a tough group.

We got off to a bad start against Germany so we knew we had no choice but to play well against the Italians, who as everyone knows are one of the favourites. We had a little luck but you always have to have some of that to win and beating Italy was fantastic. It lifted everyone, the team, the staff and coaches, even those of us still waiting to get in the side.

Don't forget this is the last chance for many of us to play in a major tournament, so we're doubly determined to go out on a high. The fact that we have had no serious injury problems has certainly helped us on our way and we are all now well into the tournament routine - hotel, meet the press, train, lie down, eat, and maybe meet the press again. We're staying at the Marriot Hotel in Preston at the moment and have been training at Preston Grasshoppers' rugby union ground.

Like England, most of our players are used to playing a couple of big games a week so three matches in 10 days presented no hardship.

There's no doubt that the whole tournament has been a great success so far - the fans and the venues, everything has been brilliant. Many of my team-mates have dreamed for years of playing in great English stadiums and walking out at Old Trafford and Anfield was a fabulous experience for them. After all, we're nearly all big fans of English soccer.

And speaking of the England team, there's no doubt that their style of playing has changed dramatically, mainly due to the influx of foreign players in the last few years. It's become much more European and that, I think, is the reason why the hosts have done so well.

We all think Alan Shearer has emerged as the star of England. His goalscoring has been tremendous and it's impossible not to respect him. If we'd had to come up against England he's the one we would have feared most. It's been a great tournament for goals, never a dull moment. But two stunners stand out. How can we forget Paul Gascoigne's brilliant solo effort against Scotland and Davor Suker's chip over my fellow goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel for Croatia against Denmark?

Good entertainment all round, and I have also had my share of the fun. Unfortunately for me I'm the only Czech player who can speak English, albeit with a kind of Czech-Geordie accent. Lucky me? I get to answer all the queries and I mean all the queries!

The phone in my hotel room doesn't stop ringing. And not just from Newcastle. If we get through to the semi-finals I'll probably have to take it off the hook.

Christophe Dugarry (France)

I FEEL really good here in England. Since signing for Milan just before Euro 96 kicked off, I feel free and confident. Now only this tournament counts and nothing else.

The weather is a bit different to back home. It's been 15C here, not like the 35C I understand it is at home in Bordeaux. But it's not so good to play in such heat.

I didn't know England very well before the tournament. I'd been here only once before with the national junior side, when we won 1-0 against the English. It seems this country is all about Lady Di, punks, mad cows and the Beatles.

Some of the hotels we've stayed in have been huge and once, walking around with Zizou [Zinedine Zidane, my ex-Bordeaux team-mate] we almost got lost trying to find our rooms.

On television there are only four channels. It's not awful but there's nothing great on. So, if I'm bored I read my Harley-Davidson magazines or play cards with Mika [our reserve striker Mickael Madar, who has just signed for Deportivo La Coruna] against Zizou and Youri Djorkaeff. They cheat, and I'm a bad loser. Then again, we all are.

I have watched some of the football highlights from 20 years ago on TV with Zizou and we died with laughter at seeing the players with their long sideburns.

But seriously, when I saw that the Bulgarians left Scarborough because it was boring I thought that was unbelievable. We're competing in a European Championship! Things like shopping and going out - you can do all that afterwards. We're all aware here that we've got one goal in mind and nothing else.

Some might say that is surprising if they know me because I have a reputation as a party animal. I'm 24 and single and it's true, if someone asks me to go for a drink then I won't say no. But in England I don't forget what we are here for. Anyway we all have our reputations. Zizou is the shy one and Liza [Bixente Lizarazu] is the surfer. But I'll tell you one thing - when Liza goes out he's worth 10 of me! When the Basques party, they really go for it.

Then after we beat Bulgaria and qualified I wasn't going to let a little knock on my Achilles' heel stop me from going out on our one free night. Our boss, Aime Jacquet, let us savour getting through to the quarter-finals, even if we didn't go crazy.

My toughest game was against Bulgaria when I was kicked around the place and I was up against Trifon Ivanov. There I was also able to watch Hristo Stoichkov in action. He is incredible because he just plays for himself.

We moved to Liverpool leading up to our quarter-final tie with Holland. It's not a city I know well, even though it has seen the Beatles, Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler. Anyway, tourism is not so high on the agenda right now.