RICARDO Vaz Te, the kid who turned his back on Benfica, Sporting Club and Porto to follow his Premiership dream, was the toast of Portugal on Thursday night.

But it was not the giants of Lisbon and Oporto who were hailing their home grown 19-year-old, but the 3,000 ecstatic Wanderers fans who celebrated another amazing UEFA Cup comeback from the never-say-die Whites.

Just three minutes of normal time remained when Vitoria Guimaraes's Polish front man, Marek Saganowski, broke the stalemate, threatening to inflict Wanderers' first defeat in Europe and throw qualifying Group H wide open.

Out of sheer desperation, Sam Allardyce sent on Vaz Te - the brightest of Portugal's junior internationals - in the hope that he might make a name for himself on home turf.

Seconds later, Vaz Te received a pass from El-Hadji Diouf on the edge of the penalty box and speared an unstoppable right-footer across the stunned home keeper Paiva into the top corner of the net to rescue a point to keep Wanderers on course for the last 32.

"It was very, very special for me," said the kid from Farense, who ignored the overtures of all the Portuguese giants when he joined the Wanderers' academy as a 16-year-old.

"Coming back here and scoring such a goal for the team, in front of my brother, my mum and my agent, who is also my friend, was fantastic.

"It was a good lay-off by Dioufy and, although my first touch wasn't that good, the second was great and that's all that matters.

"I just let myself go with the celebration. I was so pleased to get the goal for the lads and get that point for the team."

Allardyce, who believes Vaz Te has the ability to go right to the top but has been frustrated to see his progress stall this season, was as surprised to see his last-gasp substitution pay off as he was to see the youngster rise to the occasion.

"He's been a bit frustrated at not getting enough involvement in the first team but he should be proud of scoring a goal of such quality in his home country," the Wanderers boss said.

"It will give him a great boost. His progress has been a little slower than we thought but you cannot question the lad's talent.

"He really should make himself a top, top player eventually. Otherwise it will be a great waste of a natural talent.

"He is an immense talent. He's just got to get the right attitude and the right experience, so that he can produce it more and more."

Thanks to Vaz Te's heroics, Wanderers are now in a strong position to claim one of the three qualification places up for grabs in the five-team group. But they surrendered top spot to Zenit St Petersburg, who bounced back from their Reebok defeat of three weeks ago to beat Sevilla 2-1, and were far from convincing.

Their first half performance was woeful.

There was no fluency in the their play and they repeatedly wasted possession, inviting Vitoria - supposedly the weakest team in the group - to dominate and dictate with left back Rogerio Matias licensed to get forward at every opportunity.

Hidetoshi Nakata, Jay Jay Okocha and Ricardo Gardner - all guilty of carelessness on the ball - were grateful for the Portuguese side's lack of cutting edge and their own back four's diligence for keeping the scores level at half time, even though it was the inspirational Kevin Nolan, leading the side for the first time since he was officially appointed club captain, who had gone closest.

But things changed dramatically in the second half after Allardyce swapped Gary Speed for Nakata and Diouf for Jared Borgetti, who was making no headway in the absence of the injured Kevin Davies.

Diouf tormented the Portuguese, Okocha got into his stride to snatch the initiative away from Vitoria's impressive playmaker, Neca, and, if Stelios had done better in a one-on-one with Paiva, Wanderers might have had qualification wrapped up 14 minutes from the end.

Vitoria coach Jaime Pacheco had to gamble and his decision paid off handsomely in the 85th minute.

Targino found space on the left to launch a deep cross and Saganowski got in behind Gardner and stooped to become the first player to breach Allardyce's defence since Ailton's seventh minute strike for Besiktas on October 20 - six games and some 618 minutes earlier.

"It was a very difficult game for us," said the relieved Bolton boss.

"But we were resilient and hard to break down, then Dioufy gave us another dimension and Stelios had the best chance to win it. We slipped up at the back when we were looking the better side but we got a very good goal right in front of our 3,000 fantastic travelling fans and they will have enjoyed that.

"Yet again we've come from behind. We did it against Lokomotiv Plovdiv, twice, and in Besiktas but this one was the best of the lot.

"It felt like a victory, not a draw."