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Portuguese captain Fernando Couto celebrates on top of his team-mates after Sergio Conceicao scored the 2-0 lead goal during the Euro 2000 soccer championships match Portugal vs Germany 20 June 2000, in Rotterdam.

Portuguese midfielder Sergio Conceicao pulled off a rare feat at Euro 2000 when he scored all the goals in a 3-0 win over Germany in a Group A match.

Portuguese Sergio Conceicao (L) of Inter Milan shoots beside an unidentified Rosenborg Trondheim back, during the Champions league Group D match in Milan San Siro-Meazza Stadium 30 October 2002.

Few are the men to have beaten Oliver Kahn three times in one match but the then Inter Milan man's triple was doubly special as he scored one with the head, one with his left foot and the other with the right.

Only Dieter Muller in 1976, Klaus Allofs in 1980, Michel Platini (twice) in 1984 and Marco Van Basten in 1988 have scored hat-tricks in the final phase of the European Championships, leaving Conceicao in rather exclusive company.

Portugal went on to the semi finals and though Conceicao was used mainly as a substitute this was another string to the bow of a man who has won both the championship and Cup in Portugal and Italy as well as claiming a Cup Winners' Cup medal with Lazio in 1999.

He also played in all of Portugal's three matches at the 2002 World Cup although their doomed campaign ended in first round failure.

Out of the shadows

Porto midfielder Sergio Conceicao (R) gets to the ball ahead of Guimaraes' Kasongo during their Portuguese league match in Porto13 December. FC Porto won 1-0.

South Korea's Choi Jin Cheul (bottom) vies for the ball with Portugal's Sergio Conceicao (#11), 14 June 2002 at the Incheon Munhak Stadium in Incheon, during first round Group D action between Portugal and Korea in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. AFP PHOTO/CHRISTOPHE SIMON

He moved to Italy after the 1998 season, joining Sven Goran Eriksson's Lazio from Porto after a double winning season.

Success in Italy was soon to follow with the last ever Cup Winners Cup in 1999 and then in 2000, that holy grail, the Italian Championship.

Subsequent spells at Parma and Inter Milan bore no silverware but earned him great respect.

He made a brief return to Lazio for the 2003-04 season but transferred back to highly successful FC Porto in January 2004.

"I'm going home," he said of his return. "I have never forgotten my two wonderful years there."

Much of his international career has been marked by the fact that a certain Luis Figo plays in a similar position, but he was set to may a key role at Euro 2004 when a knee injury ruled him out of the tournament adding to the disappointment of missing the Champions League final won by Porto over Monaco in May.