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Taking the ball on his chest, the Portuguese forward prodded it easily past Marijan Mrmic, the reserve goalkeeper.After 32 minutes Portugal doubled their lead, at which point the match and the group was effectively settled. Carlos Secretario, the Portuguese right-back, exchanged passes with Joao Pinto just inside Croatia's half before driving hard towards the corner flag He then delivered a cross which found Luis Figo unmarked. The missing faces included both scorers there, Davor Suker and Zvonimir Boban, as well as the influential Derby-bound Aljosa Asanovic, and his new club mate, Igor Stimac, all of whom were rested.This not only seriously undermined the prospect of a genuinely meaningful contest but cannot have gone down well with the Danes, whose only hope of survival depended on Croatia winning.The odds against such an outcome lengthened in only the fourth minute. Portugal 3 Croatia 0 Portugal swept to a comfortable victory here against a team much changed by Croatia, who seemed to concede Group D to their opponents, who now play a quarter-final against the Group C runners-up, the Czech Republic, at Villa Park on Sunday while Croatia meet Germany at Old Trafford. Croatia's attitude seemed clear from the moment Miroslav Blazevic announced a line-up minus seven members of the team that had so impressively dismantled the champions, Denmark, at Hillsborough. He allegedly signed a contract in March to move from Padova to Napoli next season, but then apparently signed another contract with the Spanish club, Valencia, earlier this month..

Leicester City hope to sign Millwall's England Under-21 international left-back, Ben Thatcher, in a pounds 1.5m deal this week.The Italian Serie A side Napoli made a complaint to Fifa, world football's governing body, yesterday about the conduct of Croatia's Euro 96 forward, Goran Vlaovic. Brolin has had an unhappy time at Leeds and the club will cut their losses on a move originally estimated at a record pounds 4.75m.Gary Speed, the Leeds and Wales midfielder, is expected to complete his pounds 3.5m move to Everton tomorrow, despite a late approach from Newcastle. The newly promoted French club are also keen on Everton's Swedish winger Anders Limpar, also available at pounds 1.5m, and Celtic's Scotland full-back Tom Boyd, who is out of contract.Another Swede, Leeds United's Tomas Brolin, is the subject of a pounds 3.5m bid from the Italian Serie A club Sampdoria, who have many millions of lire to spend following the pounds 9m sale of Enrico Chiesa to Parma, Brolin's former club. "The tickets have already been cancelled and will not be reissued," Chief Inspector David Wilson, of Merseyside Police, said. "Any fans found with these tickets will not be allowed into the ground and could face police action."Sunderland's ambitious bid to sign the Bulgarian Euro 96 midfielder, Yordan Lechkov, may end in failure. The Hamburg player now seems likely to move to Marseille for pounds 1.5m.

Steve Double, a spokesman for the FA, said that the report was inaccurate, misleading and entirely untrue. "We did use a substance called Melatonin during the trip to the Far East last month," he said, "but that was because it is an anti-jetlag pill, something taken by all the British athletes and Continental footballers when they go on long-haul flights. "It is purely used to combat jetlag, although I understand it's used as an anti-ageing drug in the US," Double added, "but it isn't a sleeping tablet, and nobody is using it now."The FA and the police are also investigating the theft of about 1,000 Euro 96 Anfield quarter-final tickets, worth about pounds 50,000, which were stolen from a tour operator's car in Birmingham on Tuesday. It was reported that the England players were using a herbal-based sleeping tablet named Melatonin, a drug claimed to be on the Medicine Control Agency's banned list. Stalwarts such as Stewart McKimmie, Gordon Durie and McCoist are likely to be become more marginal, while the integration of players like Arsenal's Scott Marshall and Celtic's Jackie McNamara would help Scotland accentuate the positive aspects of their latest heroic "failure".. The Football Association yesterday described as "spurious" claims that England's Euro 96 players have using an illegal sleeping pill.

If the Scots were unlucky, it was in the Everton striker's unavailability.Ferguson must come into the reckoning next season, when Brown's task will be to freshen up a squad with an average age of nearly 30. The presence of Duncan Ferguson, a giant target man with a tanna ba' player's touch, would have been an enormous advantage. But the Leeds captain showed he has the enduring class and strength to grace the Mondiale in 1998.Collins and Stuart McCall both enhanced reputations largely built north of the wall, and it was "only" in the middle-to-front area that Scotland suffered by comparison with their Group A rivals. The strain of an arduous season, in which he played 64 high-pressure games, caught up with him when the applause of the Swiss fans brought him to tears. After Wembley he reckoned he owed the team the game of his life He owed nobody anything. Two clean sheets, to add to the seven amassed in qualifying, also rendered the non-selection of Richard Gough a non-issue.In midfield, McAllister was a colossus. In terms of the latter, Andy Goram demonstrated that he is a world-class goalkeeper, making a staggering save in each of Scotland's matches.