If you had told any football fan after the 2016 European Championship that Renato Sanches wouldn’t be in Portugal’s squad for the 2018 World Cup, they wouldn’t have believed you.

Sanches helped Portugal win their first major tournament in France, collecting the Young Player of the Tournament award for his fine displays.

The midfielder was just 18 years old then, and was expected to be a poster boy at the World Cup in Russia.

But his career has been on a downward trajectory since.

Bayern Munich decided to loan the midfielder out to Swansea City for the 2017-18 campaign and he would make just 15 appearances for the club.

The last of those came in January. He will be remembered for launching his own emojis the day after a defeat to Southampton more than for anything he did on the pitch.

So, with his reputation taking a hit, it’s going to be interesting to see how Sanches gets his career back on track.

Unexpected turn of events

It was reported last month by Portuguese newspaper A Bola that Sanches, now 20, was on the verge of returning to Benfica on a season-long loan.

However, that is no longer the case.

Per German publication kicker - and corroborated by ESPN - Sanches is now set to stay at Bayern for the rest of 2018 after his move to Benfica broke down.

The Portuguese giants were reluctant to pay a loan fee to sign the player, and he will stay in Munich.

It’s an unexpected turn of events considering A Bola reported that Benfica were in advanced negotiations to sign Sanches, and were even happy to pay a significant amount towards his wages.

Now, Sanches will have to compete for a spot in the starting line-up of the Bundesliga champions.

Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Merkur in May that new coach Niko Kovac would try to restore Sanches to the level that saw him beat Marcus Rashford and Kingsley Coman to the Golden Boy award in 2016.

"Renato is coming back," Rummenigge said. "Niko Kovac will try to restore him to former strengths -- it's an exciting task."

Bayern will be fully confident about helping Sanches reach his potential.

After all, he is still just 20 years old.