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Portugal welcomes Europe

AFP, Lisbon
Portugal is all set to host the biggest sports spectacle in its history as the top 16 European teams packed with globally-known stars vie for continental supremacy in football in the Euro 2004 finals which begin Saturday.
For the next three weeks the focus of football fans across the globe will be on the eight Portuguese cities where the 31-match tournament, the third-biggest sporting event in terms of television audiences after the Olympics and the football World Cup, will be played.
"Portugal is living a highly significant moment," Portuguese Football Federation president
Gilberto Madail said Friday.
"Aside from those who are visiting us for the event, there are millions around the world who are absorbing information about Euro 2004. In terms of international projection we have already won."
More than 100 television stations have bought the rights to transmit tournament matches and the Portuguese government expects total viewership around the world for Euro 2004 games will reach more than eight billion people.
The government has gone all out to ensure that the tournament impresses.
Portugal, western Europe's poorest country, has built seven new stadiums and completely refurbished three others for the three-week Euro 2004 football finals at a cost of some 650 million euros (790 million dollars).
This is the biggest venue construction project ever carried out by a host nation of the European finals, which are held every four years.
Another four billion euros has been spent to build access roads to the stadiums, boost airport and rail capacity and modernise hospitals to prepare for the event.
More than 500 million euros alone was spent to build a new high speed rail link which nearly halves the travel time between Lisbon and the southern Algarve coast, one of Europe's biggest tourist destinations.
As the kick-off to the event nears, Euro 2004 fever has increased in Portugal, a football-mad nation of just over 10 million.
Taxi cabs began flying Portuguese flags from their windows over the past week and the red, green and yellow-coloured cloth is being hung from growing
numbers of windows, to the delight of the national team.
"The support of the public gives us greater confidence, it helps when we all row in the same direction," said Portugal defender Rui Jorge.
Enthusiasm for the event is also reflected in ticket sales. Football fans quickly snapped up some 80 tickets for the Euro 2004 opener between hosts Portugal and Greece which went on sale on Friday morning.
Officials say about 95 percent of the tournament's 1.2 million tickets have been sold so far, slightly more than the total number of tickets sold during the last European finals held jointly by Belgium and the Netherlands in 2000.
At least half a million football fans are expected to travel to
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Portugal because of the finals, with traffic at Lisbon's international airport expected to double on Sunday from normal levels because of the match between England and France.
Portugal has invested heavily in security to ensure only match results make the headlines, spending 17 million euros on new equipment, including the nation's first water cannon vehicles.
A total of 20,000 police officers, supported by the military, will patrol the streets during the tournament, with roughly 1,000 officers dispatched to the interior of stadiums during matches.
Navy warships will guard the coast while F-16 fighter jets will help patrol the no-fly zone which will be imposed on match days over the 10 grounds which will host Euro 2004 games.
NATO meanwhile has agreed to supply Portugal with AWACS surveillance planes which can detect low-flying aircraft at a distance of over 400 kilometres (250 miles).
The aim is to protect the Euro 2004 finals against unruly fans as well as possible terror attacks, a risk which became more real following the train bombings in neighbouring Spain which killed 191 people in March.
But despite the security measures, many shopkeepers in cities which are hosting matches continue to fear fan violence will mar the tournament and are taking precautions.
Shops in Cascais, a beach resort some 30 kilometres west of Lisbon are boarding up their windows while a number of bars in the Portuguese capital have said they will close early on match days.
"We are going to watch and pray that our private security will be able to handle any problem that might arise," Lisbon shop owner Sofia Ventura told daily newspaper Publico.