PEACE Congratulations to the Greek supporters, what a great moment for Greek football! This Greek team is a mix of athleticism, positional responsibility, commitment, teamwork, adequate technique, effeciency and self belief. I beleive that group of individuals would be successful at anything they set their minds to! Well done! Now Portugal on the other hand. Why we as Portuguese fans continue to submit ourselves to this type of thing is beyond my comprehension. Do we have a willingness or tendency to subject ourselves to unpleasant or trying experiences? Do we have the tendency to derive pleasure, from being humiliated? Who knows, but how much more of this can we possibly endure? From what I have gathered most Portuguese fans are dissapointed with the result but generally pleased with the overall performance. Not me! I'm totally disgusted with our showing today. In my opinion the players owe the Portuguese public a huge apology and should renounce their earnings and give it to charity. The Portuguese fans at Estadio da Luz today were very poor, they never got behind the team and allowed the Greek minority to make it into a home game for Greece! We want the players to be motivated but the fans should set the example! I do not blame Scolari for the loss today but I do feel there are questions to be asked. a) First off, as much as I love Pauleta (fellow Acoriano), I cannot understand for the life of me why Scolari started him. The man is clearly going through a terrible spell, a Postiga start would have made more sense. b) Why do you pay a manager millions if he is merely going to apply the same tactics that resulted in a loss the last time. Scolari did nothing different in this match. A manager is supposed to be a thinker and should provide the plan for the players to follow. Rehaggel had a plan that they stuck to and it was successful, much like Cus D'Amato telling Mike Tyson "fight this way and you will be champion, change and you will lose". Scolari fell into the trap much the same way George Foreman lost against Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali knew he couldn't fight toe to toe with Foreman so he covered up for the duration of the fight and let Foreman punch him self to frustration/exhaustion and then Ali could deliver the killer blow once Foreman was weakened. Same scenario! If Scolari had been sharper he would have "flipped the script" on the greeks and instructed his players to sit back deep and draw the Greeks out thereby forcing them into an undesirable situation. "Ok, you want to play 11 men back in your 18 yard box and frustrate us, no problem, we can play the same way!". It's not rocket science! c) Why did Scolari play with a defensive midfielder(Costinha) when he knew that their was no need for one. The first time is a mistake, the second was an error! With or without Costinha their attack was the same. These three points should have been picked up by Scolari. Aside from the tactical naivete, the players themselves are ultimately to blame! From the kickoff you could see that we were playing very slowly, with no urgency and that we lacked that drive and desire that you should have in a final in your home stadium full of your supporters. If you can't get motivated for a match like this then there is no hope! For the first little while the Greeks looked more focused and threatening when they ventured forward while Portugal was playing slow build up. The mentality was all wrong. Portugal kept trying what they had done previously and the same as what France had done. Switching left to right and trying to cross in was not going to work, that should have become obvious after 25 minutes. Where was our leadership in such a situation, who took command and said "no, let' stry this now!"? Deco had a nightmare match and should be ashamed of himself, the diving was outrageous. I won't even try to defend him today! Pauleta was out of sorts. You can't expect the defencemen to change the attacking strategy. Ronaldo is just a kid. Maniche had a poor showing by his standards. Costinha is clearly in poor form and to start with is not a leader on the pitch, as he merely tackles and hands off. Figo in my estimation, shamed himself today and has done something that can never be forgiven. He should never wear the national clours again! As the senior member of the sqaud and our "star' he never looked like he took any interest in the team performance. Figo never tackled back after loosing the ball and chose to sulk instead. That type of behaviour set an absolutely poor example to the others and it typified the type of heartless, passionless and morally corrupt type of performance we were subjected to tonight. Figo should take a note from Cristiano Ronaldo, when you lose the ball you chase back and either slow the mans progress or take the ball back. Where was Figos' tears after the match? Figo's comments after the match are a clear indictment of his selfish attitude. What do you mean Figo that you are satisfied with what the team has done? You reach your first final, in the first and only tournament held at home and you are facing an ordinary club minus their inspirational midfielder and you can't get motivated to face them? That's disgraceful! Obviously I'm steaming as I write this, but the Portuguese people deserve better than this.....or do they? We have been waiting too long for a final, never mind a title, but to play with so little passion, intelligence and national pride when the odds are totally in your favour is unconscionable. How Portuguese folk can be remotely satisfied is beyond me, I for one have been betrayed one time too many .....or are we really people who are gluttons for punishment? Damn this one hurts the worst of ALL! Congratulations Greece! PEACE
--- You didn't mention this but where was Ricardo??? Admittedly, the only position I've never played has been 'keeper but if you come off your line and the ball is somewhere within the 6-yard box it better be yours!!! Take a look at the picture at: www.psoccer.com - Ricardo is 4-5 feet behind!!! This year has been a total disaster for him (at Sporting, the team never conceded as many goals as it did this year) and he really wasn't a factor in any Euro game. Damn it, v. England he dove to the right direction, it wasn't as if he saved a sure goal. ALBU
To answer your question, O Estudante, I don't know Portuguese people are masochistic as they have an inferiority complex, IMO. This is one of the things that come with being a small nation. We've been told how we can't amount to snuff over and over again (by, among many, those arrogant bitter Brits) and then most of us take that in. I don't like that attitude, really. It says that we're not supposed to do anything that's great and if we come close then that's enough. I say foder to that. Does FCP have that attitude? No. We take on anybody. Mourinho gets his message across and the players respond. But, you see, coaches, players, fans, they're not the main problem. The main problem is we need an attitude adjustment. Nerves got to the players. Total concentration was required. They should have used that Latin flair. Learn from the Brasilians for how to break down a bunker defense. Dribble, touch, dribble, move, keep moving. Create openings where none was before by exploiting another. Maniche was not allowed to get that good shot on goal because nobody else was dangerous in the box. I don't agree that we should've held back. No, we didn't attack with proficiency. Greek focks actually had it easy when they saw how ineffective luso players were in transition. Putos thought that they could fool the referee but refs don't go for that kind of shyte, especially when you have a bad rep. Attitude adjustment also on part of the public. Why were they so nice to opposing team's fans? They're fans of other teams! They want you to lose! Dummies! What was that about? It leads me to believe that they're committing a self-fulfilling prophecy about how they're not real fans. We need more true adeptos...those who live with the passion. Like the Ultras Portugal; Super Dragoes; Directivo Ultras XXI, etc.. Not people who think of a match as a night out. Not people who whenever the team looks bad start crying. Not people who think of it as opera when there's not much happening. But people who will do anything to make noise. Curse at opposing players, at opposing fans, at the referee. Jump up and down. Sneak in megaphones. Whatever it takes. But then, this is what happens when they sell tickets at high prices. We have players who can play top class futebol and can school opposing players on any given day. It's just that last night wasn't one of them. Perhaps Figo became an albatross to the team. I could think that's possible. But what if he wasn't called up for Euro 2004? There would have been an uproar from some sectors of the public. Especially the media. Then there's the Pauleta issue. There has to be someone out who can be a forward for this team. Scour the lower divisions if you have to but there should have been some creative thinking for the attack package. But I'm thinking Scolari wanted to give Pauleta all the chances to make an impact. Which leads into another of my pet peeves: the stupid clubismos and static thinking that F up the selection process. How many Porto players? How many Sporting players? How many Benfica players? Who cares!! I want to see players who can wear the verde-rubro colours comfortably. There have to be players in the other Superliga clubs who can play a role in the Selecçao. Why haven't they been called up before? I'm talking about Areias, Rossato, Assunçao, etc.. We need firepower up front, creative people in the midfield, and nerves of steel and soft hands and talent on the goal. Nah, I think, ultimately, we weren't good enough for the Greeks. That may be the saddest truth of all.
I nerver felt comfortable with Ricardo, he is pure ********. Still dont understand all the hype after the penalties against England. I really can not stnad this guy. Bring on Moreira god damn it!
Excellent post very well said and please no more Ricardo on September 4 I better see Moriera in goal.
In fact i dont think we are masochists, but for sure always we have the same "Fado", and why? To me the answer is simple the key word for Portugal is ORGANIZATION, we have great players, we have all we need to constantly fight for trophies, this year he had all this things, we achieved the highest position ever in a senior national team tournament, but we could have done better, much better. We had 2 years to develop game routines, to put the right players on the starting eleven, to train set pieces, to develop the necessary team spirit, etc etc, but we started the tournament without any of this things, and we lost the first game, was shocking for us but certainly most of us would expect something like this to happen. After the first game all changed, the team felt their pride was hurt, the coach was under enormous pressure and had to do something, he changed 5 players, and put the one´s everyone was asking for, the team won the decisive games and everything was rolling, we increased our game level till the final. In the final there are only 2 possible results victory or defeat, our opponent was Greece, a team well known to all of us and to the rest of Europe by that moment, so Scolari knew how they play because in the recent months we played against them 2 times and we only got one draw, if the homework had been done we would know that Greece had 3 major strengths, 1º Defense, 2º Counter Attack 3º Set Pieces, we gave our best against their defense we stop their counter attack very well, but we failed in one corner. It seems a struck of bad luck for us but wasn´t, against France the greeks scored after one counter attack by the right side, zagorakis crossed and charisteas was alone and scored easily, against Czechs one attack by the right side, they won the corner and scored , against us one attack by the right side, they won the corner and charisteas score. We didn´t make our homework and we paid that, plus with Pauleta in the starting eleven we were playing with 10 simply because Pauleta was terrible during the entire euro, after we were down by one goal, we played with our heart instead of our mind, the game routines wasn´t there and there was nothing more to do because we didn´t have any backup plan, we could had scored with a little more luck, but in games like this we can´t expect the luck to be on our side, we can only trust in ourselves. I still think we made a good campaign and i agree that Scolari stays with the team, but i hope he improve is tactics and is organization.
I agree with that also, Ricardo was poor the entire season and shouldn´t be on the starting eleven, but we couldn´t blame him because he proved before to everyone that he is a good keeper, in this euro he gave us one victory against england, but failed everytime a cross was sent to our area.