Thats fine. Honestly, no group in division 1 is easy. Probably never will be given the format of the tournament.
You get a trophy, just like last time. League A winners play in the four-team Nations League Finals next June and will be drawn into the smaller World Cup Qualifying groups (5 teams rather than 6) to accommodate their participation in the NL Finals. The World Cup Qualifying pots will be based on FIFA Rankings (I believe) and there will be 10 groups. Group winners advance to the WC, runners-up go to the playoffs along with the top 2 remaining NL group winners. These 12 teams will play in 4-team playoffs to determine the final 3 WC participants from UEFA. If the qualifying draw was held today, the top two pots would be: Pot 1: Belgium, France, England, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany Pot 2: Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Wales, Ukraine, Austria, Turkey, Serbia, Slovakia, Ireland Only 10 points separates Switzerland from Denmark in the rankings, with the teams between even closer to one another.
My prediction for nations league 2021: if one of the big countries (England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc) win then it will suddenly be declared prestigious. if Portugal Wins again, it will remain a Mickey Mouse cup.
Considering Portugal's group also features France and Croatia, I would think the Sweden match is least likely to be in Lisbon. For the first Nations League, Portugal hosted Italy in Lisbon and Poland in Guimaraes. The France match will almost certainly be in Lisbon, so I could see either or both others in places like Porto, Guimaraes, Braga, Algarve, etc. I think they'll spread the Nations League matches out as they tend to do with friendlies.
Say what you will about Fernando Santos, but you can’t say he doesn’t take his job and every single match seriously
He came back from injury after the restart yet Real Betis barely played him. And then he just had his first child. So I’m guessing it’s a combo of match fitness and personal reasons.
Rafa should have been called.Hasn’t been at his best for benfica In recent times, but has always performed well for Portugal. Sergio oliveira being called is pretty bad. Gk Canc Pepe Dias guerr Neves danilo Bern. Bruno trincao/Felix/guedes Ronaldo Probaly guedes will start From those three. Feix did play amazing as a sub in the cl quarter final though. Trincao as a super sub may do realy well
Happy with that squad and think we’ll beat Croatia. No Modric or Rakitic for them and Perisic and Brozovic are joining the team late
It’s crazy how betting odds have Italy and Netherlands above Portugal. Italy tied Bosnia today. Whereas, Netherlands front three is Bergwin-depay-Promes:.....which is as toothless as it gets. In addition, they were handidly beaten by Portugal in the nations league final too.
Getting the international record seems harder to reach after covid threw away the friendlies and euro and now he's missing the NL games. He would most likely be 3-5 goals away at this point instead of 11
good win plus hit the post 3 times, lost our way after the subs but still a good win against so called world cup finalist
Thursday 3rd September Latvia 0-0 Andorra Bulgaria 1-1 Republic of Ireland Faroe Islands 3-2 Malta Finland 0-1 Wales Germany 1-1 Spain Moldova 1-1 Kosovo Russia 3-1 Serbia Slovenia 0-0 Greece Turkey 0-1 Hungary Ukraine 2-1 Switzerland Friday 4th September Lithuania 0-2 Kazakhstan Belarus 0-2 Albania Italy 1-1 Bosnia and Herzegovina Netherlands 1-0 Poland Norway 1-2 Austria Romania 1-1 Northern Ireland Scotland 1-1 Israel Slovakia 1-3 Czech Republic Saturday 5th September Gibraltar 1-0 San Marino North Macedonia 2-1 Armenia Azerbaijan 1-2 Luxembourg Cyprus 0-2 Montenegro Estonia 0-1 Georgia Iceland 0-1 England Denmark 0-2 Belgium Portugal 4-1 Croatia Sweden 0-1 France
I’m glad someone else said this first, but I was stunned by how much I liked the away kit in action. I think the full hoop of stripes around the bottom of the shirt really did the trick for me. It’s a pretty sharp look.
The thing with Portugal’s kits is that the home is always red, obviously, which means it can wear that against basically any opponent who doesn’t also have a red home kit. And since the white away kits are often underwhelming, I’m okay with a unique away kit that’s potentially a swing and a miss simply because it is not worn much. As of this moment, I’d put this behind only the 2012-14 cross kit(s) and the 2014-16 centennial white/blue kits among the away kits of the 2000s when Portugal became a squad Nike cares about.