England, with a defeat in Paris and a draw in Madrid, tried to end their 1955 summer tour on a higher note against Portugal. But the dismal run continued after Portugal registered their first victory over them.

To be fair, England should never have lost this match. They had most of the possession, but failed miserably in front of goal, showing a distinct, and annoying reluctance to shoot. Coupled with this they then made two terrible blunders in defence in the last ten minutes and consequently lost the game.

Yet it had all started brightly enough. In the 19th minute Roy Bentley gave England the lead with a good shot following a delightful move involving Bentley, Jimmy Dickinson and Dennis Wilshaw. Sadly, that turned out to be their only worthwhile goal attempt of the opening half. After 24 minutes England's defence was caught dreaming and the lapse enabled Portugal to level the scores with a 25-yard screamer by Águas which flew into the top left-hand corner of Bert Williams' goal.

De Fonseca, always dangerous, and Travassos both went close afterwards but on the whole the half continued to favour England. But despite their long periods of possession it could not be turned into goals. Passos was a tower of strength for the home side and the England forwards, although showing their undoubted skill, could find little to encourage them.

There was a distinctly lethargic look about the England players, although the irrepressible Billy Wright was the exception. He was his usual immaculate self, inspiring his colleagues with a fine performance. Wright covered the many errors of his teammates with the minimum of fuss and yet still found time to urge on his forwards. The rest of the team did not respond to their skipper's example as they should have done.

The opening 25 minutes of the second half saw England surging forward and in this spell they should have put the result out of Portugal's reach. First Bentley and Wilshaw combined to create an opening, but Bentley tried one pass too many and the chance was lost. Then Albert Quixall, who had substituted for Nat Lofthouse, missed a sitter from close in when he ought to have scored. Finally, Wilshaw saw a header rebound off the crossbar when, again, he ought to have done better. Stanley Matthews had set up that last chance with a typical piece of skill, but apart from that, the Blackpool wizard was largely subdued by the hard-working Portuguese defence.

With ten minutes to go, England made a fatal error. They were pressing hard for a winner when Portugal made a rare break from defence. When Roger Byrne gathered the ball to clear it seemed the attack had broken down. But the ever alert de Fonseca chased Byrne and challenged for the ball. In a flash the coloured striker robbed the full-back before striding on to shoot past Williams. The crowd went wild with delight as the possibility of a famous victory was sensed.

Four minutes later they were even more ecstatic as that possibility became fact. This time, Wright, making his only mistake of the game, tried a back-header that fell short of Williams. Águas nipped in smartly and once again the goalkeeper was helpless.

At the end of the game the scenes at the stadium were reminiscent of a team winning the World Cup!
  

England were disjointed from the moment Nat Lofthouse went off injured with the score at 1-1. Albert Quixall came on as substitute in what was his final England appearance. It was also Roy Bentley's last match for England after twelve appearances in three different shirts over a period of six years. His nineteenth minute goal could not save England from their first defeat by Portugal. Defensive errors let the Portuguese in for two late goals and a famous victory. Stanley Matthews and Billy Wright were the only players on the pitch who had featured in the 10-0 slaughter of  Portugal in Lisbon eight years earlier. Billy Wright owned up to being responsible for Portugal's third goal. Trying to find our goalkeeper Bert Williams with a back header, he misdirected the ball and it opened the way for an easy goal. You would have thought Portugal had won the World Cup when the final whistle went. thousands of spectators poured on to the pitch, and mobbed their players. It just went to show that beating England was still counted as the big prize.
   

The third and final match of the tour was played in Oporto, and England were unfortunately beaten by three goals to one. It had been hoped that this last game would make up for previous disappointments, but the team as a whole again failed to rise to the occasion. The defence made three costly mistakes, while the forwards wasted a number of good chances to take the lead when the score was still one all. Bentley opened the scoring with a fine shot at the 18th minute, but Portugal were level at the interval (Aguas). England frittered away her opportunities in the second half until in the final ten minutes two defensive lapses gave Portugal a clear win (Matateu, Aguas). While the result will undoubtedly do a lot of good to Portuguese football, it was a sad and dismal end to a somewhat discouraging tour.