Happy hunting ground for Diego

An omen
"It's going to be an interesting situation," Diego told uefa.com. "I scored the winning goal against Rangers a few seasons ago in a friendly match against my Brazilian club, Santos. It might be an omen, who knows? I'd love to score against them again."

Middling form
Alex McLeish's side are struggling to find their form this season, languishing in the unfamiliarly low position of fifth in the Scottish Premier League. But Diego still expects the Glasgow giants to mount a strong challenge in a Champions League group that includes Slovakian title-holders FC Artmedia Bratislava and Porto's vanquishers last year, FC Internazionale Milano.

Heavy manners
Diego is steeling himself for a bruising encounter "I'm resigned to the fact those big guys from Glasgow will be quite physical towards me, but that's football," he said. "Rangers, however, have impressed me with the way they seem to defend quite well and I'm sure they won't simply be extras in our group."

Difficult season
Diego moved to Porto in the summer of 2004 following the club's historic victory in the competition in May of that year. With the departure of manager José Mourinho to Chelsea, and the loss of influential players like Ricardo Carvalho, Deco and Paulo Ferreira, Porto struggled to sustain their success. Three coaches came and went last season, and Porto lost their league title to SL Benfica.

Changing times
"Things were not easy for us last season," Diego agreed. "We had three managerial changes and a lot of people going out and coming in. We thus took longer to gel, but one can't say it was a bad season. Porto won the [European/South American] Cup and qualified for the Champions League."

'PlayStation duels'
Still only 20, Diego also had to adapt to living away from home on a new continent. "It's a life experience more than anything," he said. "I don't have much time to rest but in the last few months I managed to travel a bit to France and Spain. Most of the time I stay in Porto with the other Brazilians playing there and we have some serious PlayStation duels. We all play football games and I must admit that I call myself into the Brazilian team when I'm the manager!"

Yellow shirt
In fact, the young playmaker has already been capped for Brazil and, with the 2006 FIFA World Cup around the corner, has set his sights on increasing his haul. "The World Cup is really close and I haven't been capped for more than six months," he said. "Porto obviously is the priority now but I can't simply forget about that yellow shirt."

Second season
After last season's turmoil, new coach Co Adriaanse has got Porto off to a winning campaign this year. They lead the Portuguese league with three wins out of three, and, now settled in Portugal, Diego expects his own performances to improve in tandem with his side's. He said: "This is my second season in Europe and I expect to learn and play a lot. We were unlucky to lose in the quarter-finals last year but maybe we can do even better this season."