This post is ignorance at its finest. Nani has 2 goals and 2 assist, including the pass to Sanches. Doesn't seem like just random crosses. Quaresma has been excellent and his job is to come on against tired legs, in minimal time he has a goal and assist. Ronaldo has had plenty of chances, can't blame his runs or service, simply not doing well regardless of playing a striker role he will usually finish the chances he has recieved. Portugal with their worst team since 2000? That was part of the Golden generation, they went to the semis and lost to France in extra time. Current Portugal has a young core developing for the future. Joao Mario 23, Andre Gomes about to be 23, William 24, Danilo 24, Sanches 18 and Raphael Guerreiro 22. It might be wise to stick to barley understanding your own team, instead having no idea about another.
The Portuguese fans never see the poor performance of their team. You are accustomed to knee-jerk reactions . Laurent75 is right: this Portuguese team is horrible. Cristiano Ronaldo was catastrophic yesterday . Nani was never a great player. William Carvalho is nothing special . Hopefully they will leave the Euro as soon as possible .
We complain about our performances all the time. People see what they want to see. Portugal hasn't won a game in 90 this euro. They also haven't lost a competitive match under Santos making it 12 straight, and no defeats in 9 straight Euro matches. We know we aren't Germany, France or Spain. We expect tough games, it's not like we can play the Dutch all the time to insure another easy victory. I would add, Nani did lead the EPL in assist 09-10, you don't do that being sh*t. I won't change your mind, but understand you are not the deciding factor between good and bad. You only have opinions, and the opinions you have just happen to be less valuable than a more knowledgable person.
Both Nani and CR7 have lost the quickness and speed that made them top class players several years ago. The commentator on the US match feed, Stuart Robson, who does a lot of matches for Sky Sports (including Ajax games) noted the same thing. Ronaldo no longer can do the tricks to beat defenders one on one but he can still be dangerous in the box and is a good header of the ball. Nani is shorter and presents no aerial threat at all. IMO he is the least dangerous player on the Portuguese team. Belgium now have Vertonghen out for the tournament and their defense has been shaky and now will be even more so. It would not be surprising to see Portugal advance to the finals in another PK shoot out. But if they play Wales in the next round I'm not so sure they win as Wales defend and have Bale.
Personally despite the injury I suspect we will lose to Belgium, but would expect us to squeeze by Wales.
Watching Belgian TV. I get the feeling they took their win vs Hungary serious. As if Hazard doing well against Hungary means something. Anyway there was a weird moment on BBC that I watched for a few minutes. Around the 61 minute Kompany + Vermaelen laughing and Dembele and Vertonghen as well. What was that about? They were behind. Unacceptable. When will that coach get kicked out?
A well managed team always beats a collection of players who are ill prepared. It was the Dutch secret in 2014 and the Welsh method in 2016.
Yeah, so ? Send 1477878 crosses and you'll get a right one sooner or later. His work with the ball is just bad, he brings nothing special, reminds me a bit of our Kuyt in 2010. But I have to admit he tracks back and works hard just like Kuyt was doing too. Excellent ? Hell no. Effective yes. Scored the easiest goal against Croatia and scored his penalty against Poland. Fine. But seriously for a guy who is supposed to provoke tired defenders, he does nothing. He used to be a good dribbler, now I only saw him dribbling himself and forgetting the ball. Also abuses of crosses. Only Renato Sanches looks like a big material. The other names will be average players at best, just like our players currently (The Wijnaldums, Klaassen etc.) . If you want to have a serious proof, look at the fact Bayern paid big money for Sanches while nobody is coming for your Joao Mario, Willam etc. there are rumours about them every year but they finally stay in Portugal just like Wijnaldum & cie stayed in Holland. This Euro is low quality and you're taking advantage of the situation which is fine for you, but seriously, you can't even beat Hungary, Austria, Iceland, Croatia and Poland in the regular time and you'll be playing the semis, so nothing to be very proud. You had a better team in every single previous competition since 2000.
Shame Ramsey cant play the semis, but that handball was really dumb.. but otherwise he was great and so effective, was playing like 2 players! Portugal should go through, but @White/Blue_since1860 is probably right that the final is tomorrow..
You were provoked and honestly I have nothing against the dutch, but there is a lot of miscontrued opinions about a side that people are simply not knowledgeable about. Nani is very good in the off ball movement and is able to exploit those spaces very well but his skills have decreased. He's a shadow of his peak while at Man. United. If that's what you want to hear, you're right. However there is a player called Rafa at the bench that did more in 2 minutes than Nani in that entire match. The coach is unwilling to give him more minutes though. Just like Nani, Renato Sanches and so on, there is something that people need to know. Our offensive transition is awful due to Santos rotating the roster and formation before the Euro and continues to do so. The team hasn't gelled after 5 matches so it's fair to say that it's never going to improve until the end of the tournament. Since the midfield is struggling to connect with an individualistic attacking line and 2 MCs playing too close to the sidelines...you can see where our main issues rely on. João Mário is a great player but Santos is placing him as an inverted winger which he never played for. This is why Quaresma from time to time is brought up and is able to do something with the ball. Not because he's in an excellent form, but because he's able to do more from that position than any MC would. Basically, this all Santos fault to why we're playing so disconnected and changing the core of the formation is going to prove problematic at this stage. The only thing he can try is to amend by using players natural attributes to make those sporadic connections in the final third. It's sad, I know. Had this tactic been designed according to the team natural roles then we wouldn't need Nani or Quaresma. Renato in the meantime seems like he is carrying the team because he's irreverent and tries to pierce the final third over and over. Claiming that we had a better team in the last WC is ignorance at best. Just because we play in a certain way or results aren't fancy doesn't mean that the quality of the team is dubious. That would be the same thing as stating that Belgium is horse shit. Or Netherlands for that matter (which tbh was missed in this tournament). Wilmots was their downfall and Santos keep us hanging there with only sheer motivation and playing overly cautious for the quality we have...but he's almost just as poor. However, believe in what you want, the format is not Portugal's fault and neither one can blame the quality of our playing style if it gets the job done. On that alone we were superior against any other team including Croatia. "Croatia?! Lolz!" you say. Well, here's what people don't understand, the only goalscoring opportunities from Croatia came from a center back called Vida that had to be the outnumber factor in the goal area. Croatia was one dimensional in terms of creativity and had no Plan B to circumvent the portuguese defensive plan. If your only solution is to hope that a center back gets one in, then you weren't really that much better than the other team. In fact, Portugal's goal came down to a nice counter attack from start to finish. People are also forgetting about the clear penalty against Nani vs Croatia and C. Ronaldo vs Poland. Or the many goalscoring opportunities that Ronaldo in a normal day would put it through in all matches (with the exception of Croatia and Hungary in which he delivered). We would of ended 4 out of 5 games with wins within the 90 mins. We didn't, that's life. Maybe the next one we will. However the way the media and other fans paint us as a worse greek team of 2004 is hilarious. We don't fancy this football but to demonize every single aspect like we're a shit team instead of looking at the obvious signs of superiority (despite not playing well in the offensive transition) says a lot how most fans read the game... Having said this, considering how easy is the bracket and we're playing just the enough to go through I could see us reaching the final, more than that it's a pushover but who knows if we can draw it again and take it to PKs and be hated by the rest of the world Had Iceland done it, they would be loved though.