figo is playing amazing.. as the one article said scolari revived figo as he did with the 02 rivaldo... and as for the game vs mexico... 5 players will not play for sure... becuase of cards... ronaldo deco costinha pauleta and valente... possible replacements.. simao tiago petit nuno gomes and caneira.
I can see the logic in that move. With marquez moving into the holding role and salcdo out, mexcos defense will be severly weakened.
Exactly. This happened some months ago with Nelson, he was born in Cape Verde, came to Portugal with 16 or 17 years and after getting the Portuguese nationality(something that several cape verdians have to wait tons of years...) he forgot his nation and jumped in for Portugal, obviously this is good for Benfica. All this despite the fact that we all know Cape Verdians all root for Portuguese teams and even the NT and if wasn´t a bad descolonization process Cape Verde could still be Portuguese territory like São Tomé, since we all know no one lived there when we got there for the first time just like Madeira and Azores but wait they are not white... so presumably all the independence flag wavers in the 70s tought they would be discriminated and Portugal was stopping their progress... this kind of nations have no viability as a separate entity... Well back to the game, Scolari said he would rest 5 players, so its the perfect opportunity for players like Caneira, Tiago, Petit, Simão, Boa Morte etc to show they deserve to be in this squad and can fight for a spot in the starting eleven.
the last thing i've heard is that the following players will replace the booked ones: paulo ferreira on the left defence, petit for costinha, tiago for deco, simao for ronaldo and n.gomes for pauleta. might be risky as this kind of team has no real experience in playing together but who cares, they are all professionals and should be able to play together. nevertheless, if things go wrong i would keep the possibility open to throw in some of the key players. regarding mexico i think that even loosing they will go on, as i don't think angola might be able to wil iran...
Record.pt has said the lineup is Ricardo miguel meira carvalho caneira petit tiago maniche simao figo postiga
congratulations on beating us, I still think it should of been a tie. But hey things didn't go our way...
Was a tough match indeed. I'm proud of being able to beat you guys with 5 of our regulars out of the line-up. Mexico is quite physical and dirty at times. Angola nerrowly misses out on the Final 16. In some ways you can say Mexico got very lucky to being through to the next round.
Yep, But a missing Andrade was noticeable. Our backline looked confused and we looked like a Man down not Mexico.I thought Mexico came out swinging For that tie showing there pace and Determination. What about Postiga? Now I know this guy is usless, Use him as a sub. Congrats to Portugal/Mexico
Disagree. Meira and Carvalho worked well, they made mince-meat of Fonseca and Omar "I bent it like Beckham" Bravo. Caneira and Miguel simply didn't come back quick enough, that's why we had problems. Meira and Carvalho did fantastic. I wish Andrade was here, but Meira has filled in well for Andrade thus far.
Should've, BUT, Mexico can only blame themselves for their poor start, and failure to capitalize on our mishaps in the second half.
The ref was a stinker. As For Avs Comments, Do you think Carvalho/Ferreira is a better tandem then Meira/Carvalho? I thought Fonseca was there best player, he has that grit.
Huh? Postiga didn't do anything at all. Is it so ahrd to take you man and comeback and help the defense out. I mean Scolari was screaming near the benchside trying to get into there senses. He had a couple of nice moves and did his job. I thought Gomes/Boa Morte should've came in early.
What a game!!! Bench players with a win over Mexico...isn't it great!!! Cant wait for the next game. Hope its against Nethersland. Forca Portugal
Your right.... But Caneira is not the answer. I thought Scolari replaced Caniera knowing he was shite.
Be careful with what you wish for.... I mean, everybody wanted Greece 2years ago One thing is sure, if we could beat Argentina, the World would have its eyes on us..... and Brazil would make a big parade for our team
Sometimes you can´t analyse a game...but i completely agree with you about that, Caneira and Miguel gave to much space on their back, thats why we saw Ricardo Carvalho and especially Meira going to the line to cover. P.S. Caneira is awfull, Miguelito should be laughing really hard or crying...seeing Caneira in there. Congratulations for Simão, made the best game for the NT since i can remember.
That's your opinion, I beieve what I believe you believe what you believe. I feel I'm fair when criticizing, and fair when praising, others don't think so, but it doesn't bother me one bit. I agree, Simao did well, his crosses were effective for once, and he did well one-on-one, great vision to scope out Maniche for the first goal as well. Best picture from today here: http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=71255519&cdi=0 Also huge praise to Maniche, I haven't seen him run so much since Euro 2004, he wanted to plead his case to Scolari to leave him in against Argentina or Holland. Best part is we can go into the next match without any injury headaches like we did Angola/Iran, and with everyone on a clean slate as far as yellow cards go. Ricardo did well today as well, being the first game he was really called into action for. Mexico's goal I can't really blame on him, because the only way he could've stopped it was diving for it, and diving for it would've likely wound up in a penalty and a possible yellow/red card, because there were two Mexican players at the far post just laying there. So if anything, he can blame the goal for lack of manmarking somewhat, but a nice hit by Fonseca anyway. Miguel did great coming forward again, but as said, he allowed to much room at the back today for Mexico to capitalize. It was a good performance, but we didn't do anything in the second half with the advantage we had, and I'm sure Scolari noticed. Doesn't matter if we're already through, no excuses for not taking advantage of Mexico. Scolari was spot-on with his sub-making, maybe the timings weren't the greatest, but I agreed with every one of his decisions. Thumbs up to him again.