The red and green national flag hangs from apartment windows, store fronts, fishing boats, the back seat of cars, subway doors and the top of buses in an unprecedented show of support for the national squad.

One of the nation's biggest supermarket chains, Modelo Continente, said it has sold over one million flags, more than double the 400,000 it had estimated it would sell before the tournament began on June 12.

Monuments in the Portuguese capital are lit up at night with the colours of the flag, including a giant statue of Jesus which overlooks the city.

"I don't think I have ever felt so proud to be Portuguese. If we defeat Greece it is going to be crazy," said public worker Paulo Figueiredo who has hung a large flag from his apartment window in the historic centre of Lisbon.

Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million, has reached the semi-finals of a major tournament three times -- at the 1984 and 2000 European championships and the 1966 World Cup -- but has never progressed beyond this stage before.

The country was plunged into despair after its 2-1 defeat to Greece in the tournament's opening match in Lisbon.

But after that defeat Portugal's Brazilian coach Luiz Felipe Scolari altered the team's line-up and the squad went on to defeat Russia, Spain, England and the Netherlands to reach the final.

Now the Portuguese press are eagerly anticipating what has been billed as a revenge match against the Greek side.

"We're going to settle a score with the Greeks," screamed sports daily A Bola on its front page on Friday.

Fans are planning to form a human chain along part of the route that the bus will take as it carries the Portuguese squad to Lisbon's Stadium of Light for the final from their headquarters just outside the capital.

Supporters, some on horseback or on motorcycles, escorted the bus from the team's training camp at Alcochete, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) southeast of Lisbon, before the team's match against the Netherlands on Wednesday.

Thousands of flag-waving fans lined the route, while fishermen in their boats followed the team as it crossed the giant Vasco da Gama bridge which links Lisbon to the south of the country.

"I have been in Portugal for eight years and I've never seen support like this. There hasn't been anything like this for the national team, not even for the World Cup," said Brazilian-born midfielder Deco earlier this week.

Experts have attributed the wave in patriotism to a deep desire on the part of many Portuguese to see their country, one of western Europe's poorest and smallest, succeed in one area.

"Today there is no domain, neither political, nor cultural, which permits the Portuguese to be proud of their country," sociologist Joao Nuno Coelho, who has written extensively about football fans, told AFP.

"Football in this case is allowing them to dream a bit and be proud of their identity," he added.

Portugal slumped to its worst recession in a decade last year, with the economy contracting 1.3 percent, causing unemployment to rise at one of the fastest rates in the European Union.