Are we seeing the stratification of international football? Spain, France, England and Argentina now seem a fair bit better than Brazil, Germany and Holland with the rate at which they’re developing quality young players likely to maintain that hegemony for the foreseeable.

Eeesh, Dumfries nudges the ball away from Amiri – whose nickname, I trust, is Del – but, already committed to the slide, he tanks in to knock plough through the Inter man, knocking him off his feet. The challenge, though, is with thigh not stud, which is, I imagine, why there’s no red card.

“What could go wrong under Jesus?” returns Nelson Calvinho. “Exactly what you said, Daniel: he won’t get to develop players in international football. There’s also his hubris and stubbornness. At times his football is too attacking and leaves his teams exposed. He famously didn’t rate Bernardo Silva either, and played him at left-back at Benfica...

On the flip side, one thing that stopped him doing even better in his career is his combustible personality (Mourinho on steroids), which tends to grate on players after a while. That shouldn’t be much of a problem with the national side, as he won’t be with them day in, day out.

I still have high hopes for him as Portugal’s manager, purely because his tactical acumen is up there with the best in the world. All his teams, from Benfica and Sporting to Flamengo, have played incredibly exciting football. And yes, I was hoping Jesus would be the one with big enough cojones to leave Ronaldo out. Sigh...”

Is there a clamour in Portugal to get him gone? In England he’d have been hounded into retirement tiiiiime ago.

“Portugal v Wales, and a painful reminder that one of the greatest month of my life was 10 (TEN!!!) years ago,” says Matt Dony. “The inexorable creep of time. Portugal looked so damn beatable in Euro 2016, but you can’t legislate for Ronaldo scoring that header. Of course he’s not the same player now, but the scars remain. Every time he touches the ball, I expect him to suddenly become the CR7 again. He’ll definitely score. Theres not a doubt in This Sullen Welsh Heart. (Thanks, Nicky Wire).”

Well, he’s just made a mess of a diving header for 2-0 but, on the plus side, it gave us a decent look at his yellow highlights.

Half-time email: “Not a lot happening in Lisbon,” reports Gareth Rogers. “My personal highlight was the ‘You’re just a shit Gareth Bale!!’ chant from the traveling fans after Ronaldo spurned an easy chance to further pad his goal scoring stats against weak teams, threw his arms dramatically in the air and pointed at the imaginary divot. I will so miss him when he’s gone.”

An international level, that song is true of almost everyone. At club level, brilliant though he was, in the company he kept I felt Bale lacked a bit of guile and finesse. But I can’t think of many better international footballers than him.

“As much as I dislike Jorge Jesus as a person,” writes Nelson Calvinho, “the truth is he’s an elite ‘teacher’ manager, whose attacking, demanding, micromanaging style dramatically raises the tactical awareness and technical quality of his players. He’s absolutely obsessed about details. UK media just don’t rate him highly enough, or completely ignore him, because he’s never managed in one of your so-called big five leagues.

But when you think of the players he developed or revitalised into elite footballers (Di Maria, David Luiz, Matic, Ramires, Rafael Leão, Fábio Coentrão, Oblak, Bruno Fernandes, Enzo Perez, Axel Witsel and more, many of whom have publicly called him the best coach they ever had), it’s hard not to dream about what he’ll make of this Portugal side. If we can’t do it with Jorge Jesus, we probably never will.”

You never know how international football will work, but as long as he’s picking Ronaldo, I can’t see Portugal winning anything.

With Brobbey down and wanting treatment, having done his hammy running, Germany play on, Kimmich lifts a cross-kick over to the right, Treu crosses low, and though Adeyemi can’t turn in at the near post, Nmecha arrives on the scene to punch in the opener. As youj might imagine, Van Dijk is now even less dignant than previously, and there’s minor argy-bargy before we get going again.

It’s been one-way traffic until now and Mendes moves forward with the ball, finding Felix 25 yards from goal and unmarked. He advances, Davies opting not to close him down, and when the shot flicks off him, Ward is slow to dive, perhaps because of the deflection, but really, he should be stopping that.