"ENGLAND SWAMP PORTUGAL" Dundee Courier

England overwhelmed Portugal in this, the very first meeting between the two countries. It was a hot and sunny day and the superb pitch was perfectly suited to the fine ball players in the England side. They tore into the beleaguered Portuguese defence from the start and on the day were in a completely different class.
 
After only two minutes, England were already two goals up. Both Stan Mortensen and Tommy Lawton crashed the ball past Azevedo in a devastating opening. Immediately, Portugal tried to bend the rules. Before the match, it was agreed that a normal full-size ball would be used. Somehow, the Portuguese officials managed to swap it for a lighter, smaller version which they preferred. Later they illegally made two substitutions.

All this made no difference to the superior and highly experienced England players. With Stanly Matthews and Tom Finney in exquisite form, they ripped Portugal apart. Lawton notched their third and fifth goals and, sandwiched between them, Finney scored a cracker.

Picking the ball up on the half-way line, he beat one man, then another before reaching the by-line. As he turned towards goal, a third opponent came at him only to be beaten as well. Finney then shot past the goalkeeper from the narrowest of angles.

Half-time came and Portugal looked demoralised. But there was no let up for them after the break as the game continued in the same pattern. Lawton scored his fourth and this was followed by three more goals from Mortensen. The icing on the cake came when Matthews scored a rare goal to put the total in double figures.

It was little wonder that the unhappy, bewildered Portuguese team missed the official after-match banquet.
   

The defeat by Switzerland panicked the selectors into at last agreeing that they should play their two aces, Matthews and Finney, in the same attack against Portugal in Lisbon nine days later. The effect was sensational. England paralysed Portugal with two goals inside the first two minutes through debutant Stan Mortensen and Tommy Lawton. Matthews and Finney ran down the wings as if they owned them, and the Portuguese defence just caved in under the non-stop pressure. England were 5-0 up at half-time and then repeated the dose in the second-half after Portugal had substituted their goalkeeper, who went off in tears. Both Morty and Lawton scored four goals each, and Matthews and Finney got on the scoresheet. Wilf Mannion was the only forward who did not score, but his passes were an important part of the goals banquet. This was the closest thing ever seen to perfection on the football field. Everything England tried came off, and Portugal just didn't know what had hit them. There was a dispute before the game over which ball should be used. Walter Winterbottom demanded the usual full-size ball that was common to most international matches, but the Portuguese coach wanted a size-four ball, the type used in English schoolboy football. The referee ordered that they should play with the full-size ball, and England had it in the back of their net within twenty seconds of the kick-off. It seemed to take the goalkeeper an age to retrieve the ball, and he was fiddling around on his knees appearing to be trying to disentangle it from the corner of the netting. England were back in possession within seconds of the restart and realised the goalkeeper had switched the ball for the smaller one, and a minute later he was also fishing that out of the back of the net!  There has rarely been a more astonishing debut than Stanley Mortensen's. A goal inside the first minute and four in all! Incredible. Stan was a real miracle man. Only two years earlier he had been dragged unconscious from a crashed bomber that he had been piloting, and had head injuries that threatened to end his life, let alone his football career. He and his Blackpool team-mate Stanley Matthews were magical together. This was the match in which Tommy Lawton jokingly complained to Stanley Matthews that the lace was facing the wrong way when he centred it.