Portugal coach Fernando Santos hailed ugly duckling Eder for becoming a beautiful swan after his unlikely match-winner stunned hosts France in the final of Euro 2016.
Santos saw his team's prospects suffer a body blow when captain and talisman Cristiano Ronaldo limped out of the action with a first-half knee injury.
"When I took Cristiano out I thought of putting Eder on immediately but at that moment I thought we should change the game, so I moved Nani to the middle for him to play his fast game," the victorious tactician explained.
"But we needed someone to play up front and to let the team come up.
"We needed someone to play up in the air to make it harder for the French later on.
"When he came on he said 'gaffer, I am going to score' and the ugly duckling scored - he is now a beautiful swan."
"It's hard to describe the players' emotions. It's an incredible emotion and we need to stress [the effort of] our skipper," he said.
"He had an immense effort. We had an amazing team spirit. He had an amazing spirit - twice he tried as much as he could to get back on the pitch but he couldn't.
"Him being there in the locker room and on the bench, it was very important for us the way he reached the lands and incentivised them. He believed, just like myself, that tonight was our night.
"On his behalf I would like to thank all the players for believing because tonight was out night."
