This bothered me more, actually. It was there for the taking. We weren't outdone tactically like Greece or faced some clinical finishing like Uruguay. Can't remember a worse loss. The final hurt more because it was the final but this is harder to understand because we had everything to win this. Santos is easy to blame because he messed up quite a lot in this tournament, but he started the team I wanted him to start and ultimately the team was in position to win this. Yes, maybe that sub or the other sub, or 10 mins earlier but deep down I know that wasn't it. It just wasn't our day.
I think it reminded me of the Uruguay game in the sense that, those last 15 minutes notwithstanding, we never seemed to get a real foothold in the game and went out rather tamely for such a big game in my opinion. It just seemed so disjointed , I am not questioning the effort but, I don't know, there just seemed a 'bite' that was lacking for most of the game. That went for both teams really. I remember sitting down to watch that Uruguay game and before you knew it, the 2 hours were up, we were out, and I was left with the feeling of WTF just happened. Same as yesterday. Was not a great performance, was not a horrible performance either, just meh all around and that is how I recall my feelings were for the Uruguay game.
I see what you mean, but a bit different for me. Again I thought yesterday we had effort, we had the quality, we had everything but.... a little spark was missing and it just wasn't our day. Uruguay I felt Cavani was clinical and they were solid so we couldn't get out of that hole he dig. Disappointing obviously, but understandable. Didn't feel Belgium was that solid last night, we had them controlled for the most part and weren't done by a clinical finish or some brilliance. Rather a bad track back, a fluke shot, a Patricio hesitation. And that was it.
I agree, very disjointed. It was a good lineup, Portugal controlled the game so well even in the first half, but whenever they were in Belgiums half they would slow down and almost stop and just sit near midfield. There was no aggression in attack, it was like Okay here is the plan, we control the midfield and keep Belgium as far away from our goal as possible. We won't try to push up further than 3 quarters up the field and hem them in their zone, Belgium won't score during the first half and then we will be a little more agggressive in the 2nd half. And boom Belgium score and oh no what do we do now. You can't expect to win tournaments that way, what happened in 2016 was every bounce and moment went out way, that rarely ever happens. To win a tournament and win 4 games in the knockout round against good teams you have to dominate games. You can't expect to be conservative and every moment goes your way. That happened in 2016, late goal vs Croatia, penalties against Poland, Late goal versus france, france hitting the post before the end of the 90 minutes. All the moments went out way but that's an anomoly. That's the exception to the rule, to win a world cup ala France in 2018, or Germany 2014, you have to be the team that dominates possession.
Thats a good point, I completely overlooked him, we have so many options in midfield. At this point I guess renato would take Bruno's spot.
My team: Patricio Cancelo, Pepe, Dias, Guerreiro Palhinha Renato, Rafa Bernardo André Silva, CR7 Not sure about Rafa, but I think he could work best there. Mendes is the future and I see why you put him there, but for now and for me Guerreiro still has his spot.
I also didn’t think it was similar to Uruguay, aside from losing. I mean, they shouldn’t have had to play catch up in either game, if they had kicked off with the proper approach, but the fight back vs Uruguay was much more lifeless and limp than the blitz on the Belgian goal in the second half yesterday.
I have no idea how you can watch this tournament and still think that Guerreiro has a spot on this team. Dude was ATROCIOUS at the back and brought absolutely nothing from an attacking standpoint. Mendes is miles better and should have been the starter from game one of the tournament. As far as everything else, I don't think a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 plays to our advantages. But Santos forces it on the team and then plays Bernardo and Fernandes on the wing, which is a terrible idea. Both players cannot play on the field at the same time.
The 4-2-3-1 with the proper fullbacks is great. I’m heavily in the minority, but I like the double defensive pivot, if the fullbacks are taking they’d free license to bomb forward. The most offensive game, with a positive result vs a good enough opponent we ever played under Santos was the nations league final vs Holland, a lineup that featured the dreaded Danilo/William pairing in the midfield.
I liked it too but we got massively exposed on the wings with the double defensive pivot against Germany. Everyone knows it now that's the way to attack the Danilo/William pair.
Exactly. William and Danilo can't move. It also doesn't help that our fullbacks for this tournament were absolute garbage. I have zero doubts with Mendes at LB & Cancelo at RB, this team would have performed much differently (if Santos even lets them attack the ball).
Yeah been thinking about this during the tournament. How much Portugal seem to be lacking from wing play that they used to have a ton of. I think going forward they need to change from 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 diamond. This is what I think they should do. I think the 2 forwards should be Andre and Ronaldo. Put Bruno in his natural CAM roll with Renato and Bernardo playing the CM rolls. Both fullbacks having the flanks to push forward and help with the wings. I'm no coach or expert but I feel this the way to go with the type of talent they have. The current squad does not really have any good natural wingers expect for Jota to play a 4-3-3. Obviously Ronaldo can play there but I doubt he wants to go back to just being a winger. I hope they implement a formation like this just to see how it does.
Yeah and I think it would be pretty direct right up the middle. Maybe force them to attack a bit more as it is pretty narrow minus the wing play from the FBs.
To get our best players on the field the diamond makes sense. Issue is you need your fullbacks to really get forward to provide width otherwise the play gets too narrow and in turn predictable. You also need your goalkeeper to take a higher position on the field to help cover the channels for long ball outlets. The thing I would say is that Portugal need to have a plan B both defensively & offensively, that was incredibly obvious in the Germany game. Santos comments after that game were an admission that we were not properly prepared. the diamond midfield is good, but if we’re chasing the game we need to got to a 4-3-3 or a 3-4-3. We are too predictable in attack imo and have been for a long time. the other point I want to address is that people saying Santos put the right players on so then it’s up to the players. That’s nonsense, if the only job of the coach is to pick an XI than I guess we’re all qualified then. Just look at how Lowe set Germany up with the overload and clearly how players directed the play to those areas. The game isn’t a fantasy XI game, you need to have a strategy
Cancelo and Neves can bomb forward and provide the extra width, and it allows Silva or Ronaldo to drift wide on occasion without leaving a massive gaping hole in the box.
Today's multi-goal comebacks by Croatia and Switzerland are really putting Portugal's weak comeback attempts yesterday in perspective.
What's putting into perspective was that this tournament was there for the taking and we shat the bed massively.
Just saw a vision of Argentina - Portugal in the world cup final. How epic a conclusion would it be for the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry to end on that note? Loooooooooong way to go to get there, of course.