Best game for him by far so far. Scored and assisted. Good to see. Hope he gains confidence from this. We need him to be better.
Bruno finally had a good game. Seems to me he struggles more when Ronaldo is on the pitch. Also having Moutinho and Palhinha controlled the midfield and allowed the more creative players freedom. Kind of like a 4-2-3-1 but instead of having two pure defensive midfielders like the failure that was our midfield in the Euros, we can have a box to box alongside a more defensive midfielder.
Serbia up 1 0 on Ireland, I can't believe they haven't dropped any points to any team besides us so far.
Portugal tied Serbia away. Portugal was cheated when Ronaldo’s goal was disallowed. Portugal need to take care of business.
We play better w/o ronaldo... I see a trend happening. Use him as a sub and get this team playing more confidently as a team Confidence is big and I like JM/JP in the middle.
Played much better and some players played much better today but we also have to take into consideration level of competition today….
As usual, Portugal plays significantly better with Ronaldo nowhere near them. I'll dare they that Fernando Santos would be fine if CR7 would not be around.
We Play better without Ronaldo but he is still important, can Ronaldo take one for the team? His ego seems too big for that, cannot see him accepting a Super Sub role or a Secondary Role. Difficult, I do not see other coaches having the balls, so that make Santos on par with everyone else. Having the Best of Both Worlds is a seemingly invisible line.
Took care of business easily enough. I would've been slightly annoyed by not adding to our GD, but the Serbia draw trumps that. There's a very real possibility that Portugal has even more of a cushion a month from now with Serbia playing at Luxembourg next. Who would've thought we'd be able to say such a thing with a straight face? On the flipside, if Serbia beats Luxembourg and Azerbaijan in October, it'll be first in the group (although Portugal will have a game in hand, the match in Ireland).