All that matters is that Ronaldo is in form and that Danny/Mendes are healthy. Portugal will be unstoppable.
No I'm not kidding. Maicon is a notch better going forward, but Bosingwa is a better defender. Dani Alves is great.... at diving. But seriously, he's good going forward, but he's a huge liability at defending. He tends to get caught out when attacking. He's got the speed the track back, but many times gets caught up on attacking. Perfect example of this, was the 1st half against Real the other day. Maicon --->Dani Alves. I hope Dani Alves gets the nod over Maicon come WC time, would love to see a fully fit Ronaldo take him on. We will probably see Maicon get the nod over Alves at the RB spot, and see Alves come in off the bench and play RW.
Nah, actually was from a friendly against Benfica while we were in the 2nd division...and guess what, we won.
I got to agree. Maicon is better then Dani Alves because hes just smarter defensively. Yes Maicon doesn't have the crossing ability that Alves posses, but he is no joke either. I have seen Dunga implement both on the field at the same time, using Daniel as a winger. I would hope that Dunga (cocky little bastard) implements Alves opposed to Maicon.
Whatever the case, Bosingwa isn't as good as either. Its not a huge difference, but the RB position isn't equal. LB may be equal as both teams have problems there
the other thing that people forget is dunga's scheme. maicon needs to play because of his better defensive abilities. and dunga has one guy who crosses -- that's elano, who is probably one of the best direct passers in the world -- just look at the perfect cross that elano made in the england game to nilmar. brazil doesnt need maicon to cross because maicon will just run up and pass to elano to set up the crosses. and coincidentally, if maicon and alves are on the pitch at the same time...dunga puts in alves in elano's place.
depth is vital though. i mean, you need it when things are going terrible. if you're down by a goal or more, you need to have the players that will be able to turn the result around. if your forwards are sucking, replace one of them or add more creativity to the midfield. i mean, these are aspects that only a select few teams have -- really i think only brazil and spain. for example, forward for you guys. liedson can score goals but he's extremely slender. he will get pushed around by brazil's and ivory coast's physical defensive line. on the other hand, hugo almeida is much bigger and heavier, but he doesnt have the same goal-scoring ability. on the other hand, depth might not be as big a factor in our group simply because all the relevant teams here play a similar style of play. you obviously have depth at winger, but the problem, at least in my mind, is that it is a very specific style of play and it only works well in certain instances -- and it should be good enough to get out of the group phase and maybe to the quarters (getting further will depend on the opponent's style). when facing a well-organized defense that's physical with quality players who can finish -- like a paraguay or a germany or a france (formerly lol), i think you end up having problems because you can't play wide all the time. you just have to have the tactical flexibility to execute changes that will work. i will bring up a painful example for me -- the brazil-france game in 2006. the way that team was organized was predictable and rigid. we only had a variation of the 4-4-2 with 2 AMs and a lot of space in the middle. that meant we just didnt have it to bring the ball forward when things went bad (and even in general, we struggled to do that). had we not faced france, i think we couldve gone further (like instead had we faced spain in the quarters). parreira gambled in the france game and it backfired (although we wouldve lost anyways i think). he switched all of a sudden to a 4-5-1 with juninho playing in midfield and replacing adriano in the line-up. in theory, i think this could have worked against france had we actually tested it out a lot in the prior months. but we didnt. and instead, we had a dismal game and only registered our first shot on goal in the 88th minute or something. dunga has since fixed this problem, but it's a good example of where you need the appropriate depth and tactical wherewithal to win it all -- although a lot of the blame lies on parreira there, it still shows that you need depth and flexibility (robinho and ronaldo starting would have been ideal, for example, but robinho got injured before the france game). france had it to get to the finals.
Leonidas, while you bring up some good points, I still feel that when things go wrong, one player does not usually make a recovery. If there is time (say 10 min left) I feel that the players on the pitch can try to get it together to straighten out the ship. A lot of times you see coaches sub in players the moment they go one down, to try and get something going. What you forget is that this new player sometimes needs to get into the flow his team mates are in already. That can be tough. The sub angle usually works because the guy coming in has fresher legs. I sometimes think the most important player in the starting XI is the holding midfielder. If he can slow down the attack just by 2-3 seconds it gives his back-line a huge advantage to snuff out an attack. I always thought Petit was very underrated in what he did. When he was on, he made it very difficult for the attacking players and combined with like a Pepe or Boswinga in conjunction with Ronaldo or Simao made for a great counter attack. Lets remember the key to a lot of the victories in the 2004 Euro was Maniche. For us to do very well (and I have no doubt that we will surprise quite a few in a good way) is going to be if we use Ronaldo in the same way that Stormin' Norman did in the first Gulf War. Use him as a diversion to draw 2-3 marks. The other teams will no doubt play a zone control, handing over and overlapping players against him as he moves down the side. If this happens it should create huge mismatches in front of net, especially with players like Liedson or even Almeida. There is no way the opposing managers will even allow CR to just have his way by having only one player on him. CR will just have to resolve himself to the fact he may not score at will, but it should allow for the others to get a lot of shots off. Another advantage we have over a lot of countries, is the fact that we do have some very quick players (unfortunately Brazil may be just as fast)who will be able to close in very fast. Like I said the question mark is in the untried Eduardo at goal. But if he can keep from stinking up the joint, we will have a very decent keeper for at least the next 10-14 years.
I didn't mention independence, but the mere fact that Brazil has been around for that time as a separate entity from Portugal. You need to relax, and take a reading comprehension course. I live in Boston, and don't do drugs -- but I appreciate your nice stereotype fueled by a movie of disenfranchised youth, and your obvious biased view of Brazilians - ask Nani how him and his friends grew up, though. I watched all the games, and if you don't think Portugal struggled in the qualifiers compared to the potential then you're simply blind. The goals were not coming, and Liedson was called in to try to qualify Portugal. Those are the facts.
Leonidas, this is a very good post. You are certainly right about the need for tactical flexibility to carry a team deep in a tournament. Another factor left unmentioned is that in a tournament where teams may end up playing every 3-4 days, depth is key to cover for the inevitable injuries/knocks. And, yeah, Brasil and Spain are the deepest teams by a long shot. Either way, most of us are not delusional. Brasil is very strongly favored over us. Brasil is far stronger at striker(s), midfield, keeper, depth and coaching. Our strongest asset is our defense but our weakness at LB can be exposed by speed (which Brasil' right wing have more than enough). CRonaldo is a huge weapon and, if healthy, he will be a handful - but he can't win it alone. We shall see if in the next few months we can get work on patching up our ravaged CM. Deco is in steep decline and his replacements are coming back from long-term injuries. We shall see... In any case, the only game we really should be thinking about right now is Ivory Coast. That's the key game. If we beat them, then the Brasil and Portugal match-up takes on a completely different character (not forgetting the Boogie Monster waiting the 2nd-placed team...). Good luck to Brasil in the coming months and let's continue this conversation after the Ivory Coast game(s)...
every time we had a portuguese speaking team in our group we made the semi finals 1966 - brasil (eliminated them) -3rd place 2006- An -4th place 2010- well go at least semi finals the stars are aligning CR7 4 goals vs N. korea like EUSEBIO Edinho for player of the tournament!!!
Im a sporting fan and liedson is my boy but he only scored 2 goals. it was a team effort to make the WC. lets not forget simao and nani were the ones who scored the more goals. CR7 not even 1 goal in all of qualifying, had soem injuries and missed a few games as well. imagine when hes fully fit? he was owning hungary for 20 mins then he got injured again. CR7 fully fit guarentees a goal per game. imagine when he does start scoring? thats like 1 goal per game almost. Portugal sucked balls in the beginning, Scolari left through the back door to Chelsea and left the team in shambles and Carlos Querioz was thrown into the lions den so things started poorly. but we turned it around liedson helped but he wasnt the turnign point. the exact turning point is closer to home. it was in the former Portuguese South American city of Brasilia, when the brave Portugal team paid a rare visit to south america, something no other european teams have the balls to do (in the same way lthey didnt have the balls to be the first ones cross the atlantic ocean by sea) . we were humbled 6-2 on that day in brasilia and it was a disaster. since then we got better, and we won 2-1 in albania with a epic 90th minute BRUNO ALVES goal that got things started for us an thts when we climbed out of our rough patch and got the results needed to qualify. now in South africa the stage is set for... REVENGE.
Actually a very good and interesting post. I agree that the Brazil game was the turning point and whatever anyone says about our qualifying we had some very bad luck and crucial injuries which CQ cannot control. A team lineup with ----------------Patricio---------------- ---------Alves---------Carvalho------ Bosingwa-------Pepe----------Veloso ----------Mendes------Deco---------- Ronaldo------------------------Danny ----------------Liedson--------------- Its solid with quality all over and will be so hard to break down!!!
I find this intriguing. Danny on the right.... I'd replace Patricio with Beto. CQ does not understand what he has in front of him, it's a matter of tinkering and finding what you have to work with. I really feel he is not the right coach and I see this formation working to our advantage. Look at the middle, it's rock steady.
I agree with this. Quieroz needs to see the quality that he fails to include. Mendes is so damn good, but I think that an on form meireles can give us better passes than Deco...shoot me I know, but he had two SICKK crosses for Porto friday, and when he actually plays slightly well he has everything Deco has, maybe not as much vision but Deco fails to act on that vision usually anyways. Maybe Tiago too, but Deco is on his way out of our squad.
However Deco is still our main Thinker in midfield, remember the match against Bosnia in Portugal, the main attacks of Portugal came from Deco's feet. I will depend on how he reach the World Cup, In Euro he arrived as underperformed as he is today and performed very well, it will depends on his motivation, and i believe it will be huge, since its his last international tournament.
I gotta say that I TOTALLY agree with you. It also comes down to us getting three points as IC. It seems that when we go into any type of competition favored we seem to take blow it big time. I agree with you that I have not heard ONE single commentator say that we could win this group or even come in second. I really have this feeling that we will win the group and that IC will come in second with the Brasucas going home early. We shall see!!!!!
Theres not alot of "big names" in your midfield, thats probably why, along with the constant achilles heal of striker..Liedson is good, but he's lightweight..and the lkes of varela are unknown etc. On paper Portugal doesnt look nowhere near as potent as it once did in midfield/attack with Figo, Rui Costa, Maniche gone, and Deco looking cumbersone and lazy. Pepe is seen as a centreback out of position Meireles is decent, but nothing more at all. No prescence on the field, cant dictate or dominate an opposing teams middle like Maniche, passing and skill is nothing on Maniche...alot of ppl see him and automatically think WEAK SPOT Deco-as stated Those three will be Queiroz's starting central midfielders. Plus simao is decent, but when in any tournament has he really made a difference besides once cross in euro 2004? Duda at leftback against top quality opponents raises alot of eyebrows as well when people look at the squad...and with good reason...i distincly remember vs Albania where the striker purposly stuck to him out on the left, getting away from alves etc and crept in to meet a cross knowing he can do so easily to score. All those players are in your starting 11, a starting 11 that doesnt generate much "fear". Also, not many people have seen Eduardo play on a constant basis. The starting 11 on the opening day bar injuries(knock on wood) or something strange... -----------------Eduardo-------------- ----------Carvalho------Alves----------- Bosingwa----------------------------Duda -------------Pepe---Meireles------------- Ronaldo----------Deco------------Simao ----------------Liedson----------------- Whether anyone likes it or not, thats sadly how Queiroz will probably lineup.