Positive surprises were Portugal finally coming together, England managing to go out without losing a 90 or 120 minute game and the sheer dominance of most of Pirlo's performances. The negative surprises, though ironically something of an MO for both, were the off-field implosions of the Dutch and French teams.
with all due respect, Portugal have been a solid team for 12 years now. 2000 - semi's 2004 - runners up 2008 - qtr finals 2012 - semi's 2006 world cup made the semi finals as well and 2010 2nd round losing to eventual world champions and then european champions spain.
Indeed. As stated by Lusitania14 from the thread about which is the most overrated football country in the world: "But did Portugal really fall short? Fall short of what expectation? The expectation that a country of 10,000,000 should compete with the likes of Spain, which has a population of 47,000,000? That it should produce as many quality players as 60,000,000 Italians or 81,000,000 Germans? Portugal has the population of Belgium or Hungary, yet the world expects infinitely more of it.That is a testament not to a team of misfortune and disappointment, as one would think in the aftermath of its loss to Spain, but one of tremendous overachievement and accomplishment."
That's a testament to the quality of players they produce. Having produced the players, they've been expected to produce better displays than in some of their recent tournaments. Their results have been decent, but they haven't always played as brilliantly as some would expect. This tournament, I think they did.