If we have all red again it's the FPF's decision. Nike made France all blue yet they are back to Blue, white, red.
Well I have nothing against him, but someone posted an article about him in another thread here, and he has one of the lowest conversion rates. I guess he has great positioning or he takes a lot of long distance shots.
He has decent speed with a fantastic shot. Not a lot of skill nut when he gets his chance, he capitalizes. Should be on the team over Almeida.
The hilarity begins: I'm seeing the opinion that the Netherlands is rated higher then both France and Portugal again. Do people really believe qualifiers are a better gauge then the previous tournament? Who was even in Netherlands group again? *Looks it up* Romania, Hungary and Turkey... 3 washed up NT's that kept switching the #2 spot. Let's face facts ever since Portugal eliminated Netherlands from the 2002 World Cup Qualifiers the Dutch have been givin' cake walk groups tourney after tourney. They get a bunch of hype leading to the tournament then face us or Spain and lose. The only team they beat worth mention in the last 20 years was Brazil in 2010 but they were a washed up bunch that we should of creamed if CQ didn't make us play like Italy, the rest was a free ride to the Final. Euro 2012 they were swept and no one remembers. France, because they had to go to the playoffs, is now shit once again. I'd like to see matches where these France and Portugal doubters from anyone not among the 5 favourites get us in a match.
I think we have regressed defensively since Euro, Pepe I think come World Cup will be back to his best, but I struggle to see Alves being commanding presence come the World Cup. For me luis Neto should be starting as I think there is better balance with Pepe. I also personally believe Cedric Soares is our best options at RB. William Carvalho needs to be massaged into the first XI, whether that means pushing Veloso up next to Moutinho, or dropping Veloso, I would drop Merieles. Moutinho is a world class player, he is one of the best midfielders in the world, he has been our best player this qualification and it struck me in the game verse Sweden. He has steadily improved and no one outside of portugal Or Monaco realise what a special player he is. We need an attacking midfielder to break through, Josue is showing signs but has struggled to replicate his form from last season. Bernardo Silva form is pretty much demanding for him to be brought into Benficas first team squad, however JJs form in this respect is not good. Bruno Fernandes is now starting for Udinese and if he can help turn their season around he may come into the reckoning. Andre Martins for me lacks something at the moment and for me should not come into the reckoning. Adrien Silva for me is the best option if we can't find a creative outlet in the centre of the park, knows Moutinho from alcochete days and plays with Carvalho every week, has great legs and leaves it all out there. Out wide its a difficult situation, Nani needs to be playing for united he is absolute rubbish when he is lacking game time, but when he is on he is still our best option on the right so my hope is that he starts playing, and playing to what we all know is his immense potential. If you have Ronaldo and Nani firing portugal then we may be cooking with gas, I think it's a bit much to expect a lot from Bruma and I would much prefer for him to be a impact off the bench with Varela as another strong option. Up fronti personally think it should be Oliveira, Eder, Postiga
You know how it is, The dutch will be billed as one of the favourites, Portugal will be given 80-1 odds and then when we smoke Holland again, everyone will think it's a massive upset. Also, qualifiers means nothing. Doesn't matter how you qualify, what matters is how you perform at the WC. I'm pretty sure Uruguay, Mexico and France aren't crying about having to play an extra playoff now. They are just as happy as Spain, Argentina and Germany for making it.
You guys remember the good old days? How did we not win with this team ??? Ricardo Bosingwa - Ricardo Carvalho - Jorge Andrade - Rui Jorge Costinha Luis Figo - Deco - Rui Costa - Cristiano Ronaldo Pauleta/Nuno Gomes
It seems to me that Portugal has a real chance in 2014. Let's see: Patrício is in good shape and just in case he isn't by the time the World Cup starts we still have Anthony Lopes who will be a great goalkeeper in the future (despite his recent injury, i hope he recovers well). We have good central defenders, Pepe and Bruno Alves, with also Neto being a somehow good alternative. Both are experienced and they seem to be quite solid in most occasions. Our LB is obviously Coentrão, no matter what shape he's in, he's still our best bet. Just hope he gets more playing time at Madrid or manages to play for another good team in January. As for the RB, i actually like João Pereira but Cédric may take his place, who knows. Then, there is Super Moutinho who impresses me every time he plays. Truly a special player and i doubt he gets the credit he deserves sometimes. Meireles will surely be out, replaced by William Carvalho (at least i hope so). Then we have Veloso, Adrien, and others. It seems to me that Bento has good players for whatever tactics he wants to use. As for the attack, Ronaldo is in the best shape ever and i hope he keeps it that way until the WC. Nani should get much more playing time in order to be at his best (which is world class), if not, Vieirinha is quite good also. And i really want Nelson Oliveira who is doing good in Rennes to achieve his starting position. He has potential and only needs someone to get him a good attitude (he can be very selfish i.e. his terrible shot against Israel when Ronaldo was prepared to score if Nelson gave him the ball)... Hugo Almeida and Hélder Postiga never convinced me to be honest. However, Éder should have his chance too, i actually like him. That being said, i'm hoping for a good draw for Portugal. Not a very weak group, but also no "Death Group". It should be a group in which we need to push it to get 1º, but not that hard either (i still want to see Portugal in the next stage ahah). Cheers to all Portugal fans out there!
My points of concern for our team, Nani, Bruno Alves and Postiga/Almeida . I dont see things changing for Nani In Man U so he comes to us completely off his game and with zero confidants. They are killing him. Bruno Alves, I would go to war with the man but I dont think he can no long keep up. Our strikers ? Honestly, if we are not going to give one of our young strikers an opportunity then we might just as well play with no striker. Put as much talent on the field as we can. When we have someone like Hugo on the field its like playing a man down. There is zero contribution. Postiga works ass off but is no where what we need at that position either.
their team hasn't impressed me quite a bit; their central defenders are amateurs compared to Pepe and B. Alves It's going to be fun when Van Gaal gives a press conference though, they never fail to deliver.
Did Deco and Rui Costa ever played together? Usually Maniche played and only one of the two. The answer to your question is...Ricardo.
True, but he did a good job against Sweden and he is by far the best we've got for now. Of course, if Anthony Lopes can take his place (i really doubt it) until then, that's also fine.
No he didn't. Didn't come out for a corner in the goal area for the first goal and let in a massive howler for the free kick. We're stuck with him, but that doesn't mean that we don't need him back on his old form. The current one is just not good enough.
He wasn't good enough on Ibra's two goals, but you gotta remember some massive saves he has pulled of in many games before. One of those happened in that game, allowing Ronaldo to score some seconds after. He is good, not the best, but quite good. And yes i agree, the better the form he's in, the better will Portugal be in the WC. However, having World Class players like Ronaldo, Nani, Pepe, Moutinho, etc. it's a shame that we don't have a goalkeeper as good as other national teams are lucky to have... oh well, let's hope for the best.
I just think something in his head is not right at the moment. He has the talent to be better, and he shows it in flashes, but one howler can send you packing in a World Cup and at the moment he seems to happen much too often to him, both for Sporting and the NT. If he gets his confidence back....anything can happen!
In 2004 I believe so. Rui Costa scored against Russia ( I think) and against England Rui scored coming off the bench. 2003, To be honest, cant remember.
Good Afternoon to you This is the first time i visited this website and as a true Dutch football fan i just had to respond to this ridiculous answer you just gave. I firstly thought, and it truly looked like a descent website but with the shit spraid already just on this page i get why this site doesn't get very far internationally ... And i truly wish you would get your shit together before you post a new answer about the Dutch national squad. So to begin with, you said the only descent game The Netherlands played in South Africa was against Brasil ? just to remind you, we also played in the semi finals you know and it was against uruguay who is currently 6th on the world ranking so that is the 6th best country in the world. and Portugal let me see, yes Portugal is on the 14th place... so that means they are more than twice as shit as uruguay yes you saw it good, 6th it's above Portugal's ranking yes. And than let me remind you that in the finals spain scored the only goad by an assist that was offside and in the 116th minute and portugal lost by a goal that wasn't offside and they couldn't even hold stand against spain until the 64th minute when spain scored #factand just to remind you the Netherlands played games just this year against countries like Germany, Italy, Colombia and even Portugal and hasn't lost a single game ! and if you go look it up you will see that the netherlands is the only country in the world who didn't lose one single game this whole year. And by the way not all those friendly matches were really friendly but you sure wouldn't know that because you obviously don't watch football if you post things like that... and if you are really curious just look up the game against Colombia were Holand didnt even play with players like van Persie, Robben, Sneijder, Nigel de Jong, Huntelaar and Colombia played with Falcao, Zapata, Cuadrado, Rodriguez, Martinez and many others and still they couldn't win from Holland ... as you will see Colombia gave 100 %... the game wasn't that friendly at all ! And to finish, i saw other coments that our team is shit, the defense is bad and all but again i notice the stupidity of some people on this website who thing they know shit about football but really, you dont... we have great central defending talents as you can see in Virgil van Dijk ( 22 ) played almost every game this year for Celtic, never lost a game in the league and played every single game in the Champions league almost 100% perfect with no personal mistakes... i guarantee you he will be playing at a Top club in the near future just like others like Jeffrey Bruma, Karim Rekik, Joel Veltman, Stefan de Vrij and others. And on the midfield we have got Sneijder who still has exceptional qualities, Strootman who still evolves every single month and who surprises me by not going to Man United this year but is guaranteed the level of Khedira of Real already... and he is still getting better ! and of course Nigel de Jong the nightmare of every striker. So now i assume you get your shit together before posting another of your ridiculous answers Mr. Better then any Dutch Ass: a true Dutchman and a true Football fan
Never underestimate human stupidity, seriously, when Euro 2012 was about to start I was really excited to see this team prove everyone wrong, especially people that thought Denmark was better because they beat us in qualifying. Euro passed, we did great and beat Denmark when it mattered, guess what, nothing changed. I sincerely believe if we make the final of this WC nothing will change again. We must have the most hated national team in the world, no other way I can explain it because everything else defies logic. Check this out http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1855697-power-ranking-the-32-world-cup-qualifiers You know if you look at the overall team values, Portugal is #9 and even if you remove Ronaldo and then minus the highest played player on the other teams, we still rank in the top ten, and if you look at the top ten values it almost falls in line with the Fifa and ELO ratings. Yet so many Ignorant people believe this team is all Ronaldo. One smuck in the Rank the 32 teams thread, said without Ronaldo, Portugal would be last, as if Moutinho, Nani, Pepe and Coentrao would not be the best players on Switzerland or Bosnia(minus Dzeko) or Croatia(Minus Modric and Mandzukic). This is why I get so irritated seeing so many Portuguese people here being negative, everyone hates us, the last thing we need is our own people doing the same. Lastly, how many mother fu**ing times do we have to do better than England for us to be rated above them.