World Cup 2010 : Portugal

Portugal fail to relive Age of Discovery

Sergio Santos — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:08:00 GMT

Few people outside Portugal may have heard of Bartolomeu Dias, but in Portuguese schools everyone learns about his feats during the so-called ‘Age of Discovery’.

Dias, the first European to have sailed around the southernmost tip of the African continent, gained near legendary status because he succeeded where others before had failed: he managed to overcome strong wind and severe storms around what was then called the ‘Cape of Storms’ to secure the much-coveted passage around Africa. The cape would later be renamed ‘Cape of Good Hope’ and a statue of Dias can today be seen in Cape Town – where the cape is located.

It is perhaps ironic that Portugal bowed out of the World Cup empty-handed, with no glory or pride in that very same city. Unlike Dias though, Queiroz didn’t dare to win, he was merely happy to wait for the wind to blow in the right direction. And that’s why he failed.

Against Spain, the Portuguese strategy was obvious from the start: frustrate the Spaniards’ superior football and hit them on the counter-attack; after all, Portugal was yet to concede a single goal in the tournament and our neighbours looked shaky in the group stages.

Throughout the first 45 minutes, that plan seemed to work. The high football IQ of Xavi and Iniesta could not find a pass for the deadly duo of Torres and Villa and the Portuguese – even with the usually ineffective Almeida alone upfront – created a few chances on their own.

The moment of the match came in the 58th minute as both managers decided it was time to change something; Del Bosque replaced Fernando Torres for Fernando Llorente and Queiroz opted to bring Danny for Hugo Almeida. On paper, it appeared Spain needed a Navas or Silva type player to provide more width to a side that could not break through the Portuguese watertight backline, but Llorente proved a handful for Carvalho and Alves with his strong presence and aerial threat while Danny made Almeida look like a star.

Five minutes later, Spain broke the deadlock through David Villa after a cheeky backheeled pass from Xavi. For the first time in the tournament, Portugal had to go on the offensive and it didn’t seem something they found easy to do.

The players were clueless and could barely muster a shot, while Spain were more than happy to just keep possession. Having wasted one substitution, Queiroz had to waste another as Pepe was still not ready to play the whole match. The third substitution summed up the Portugeezer problem with Queiroz; he introduced Liedson for Simão, deploying Danny to the wing and sticking rigidly to a formation that wasn’t working.

When the referee blew for full-time, nobody really cared that David Villa’s goal should have been ruled offside. Spain were worthy winners, but more than that, because Portugal showed no attacking intent – not even the last-ditch ‘Hail Mary’ pass long balls. We were worthy losers.

Queiroz: What happens now?

The Portugeezer will reserve his final judgment on Queiroz’s future until all the World Cup dust settles. He seemed rather upbeat for a guy who failed to achieve his self-imposed target of reaching the semi-finals, but in the next few weeks he will have to answer the following nagging questions:

· Why has Ricardo Costa been the team’s first choice right-back?

· Why has he relied so heavily on Pepe – a player who only played 15 minutes of football since December?

· Why has the team struggled so badly to score and why didn’t he take more attacking-minded players to South Africa?

· Can we actually say the team has improved since 2008?

What have you made of Portugal’s World Cup campaign? Have your say below…

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Were Spain excellent...or just average?

Tim Stannard — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:44:00 GMT

La Liga Loca’s ‘Ladeez of Battlestar Galactica’ calendar - Cylon Boomer is next month’s model, yay! - says that July is almost upon us.

And that means the blog has been watching and droning on about football non-stop for some eleven months now. This might explain why LLL has even less of a clue than usual on what in jumping Josephine’s longjohns is going on in the wide, wide world of sport.

The blog thought that Spain’s footballing efforts against Switzerland and Honduras were quite good, whilst the performances against Chile and most recently of all, Portugal were a little like an average episode of CSI: it passes the time and entertains you in snatches with the occasional cool shot of a bullet going very slowly through a shoulder blade (ah, so that's what happened to Joan Capdevilla last night - ed.).

LLL senses that the good people of Madrid may agree. During Euro 2008, the singing/car horn tooting after each victory went on for days. On Tuesday night, it had all but stopped half-an-hour after the 1-0 win over Portugal, aside from the odd tool who decided to celebrate at 4.30 in the morning.

However, the sporting press don’t seem to follow this more modest vibe. The TV broadcasters of the Portugal clash spent 90 minutes shouting “Excellent Puyol! Excellent Busquets! Excellent Torres!” Every. Time. They. Did. Anything.

This is especially deluded in the case of the Liverpool striker who will surely be sent back to England forthwith branded with a big ‘damaged goods’ mark on his Fuenlabradan forehead, especially after Fernando Llorente’s fairly bright cameo appearance.

Marca have gone most nuts with the headline of “This is my Spain!”. “The reds get their rhythm and touch back that made them the best in the world!....The triumph of the masters!” continues the paper before declaring victory on Saturday in their editorial.

“Spain has everything. A beatable opponent but one we’ll have to be careful of in Paraguay and on top of everything else, a group of wonderful footballers capable of amazing the whole world.”

AS are just as nuts in their assessment of the 1-0 win against a team that barely bothered to attack with the paper happily going into stereotype mode with the headline “Bullfighters!”

“A good match, a good win and a good rival for the quarters,” smugs the paper’s editor Alfredo Relaño who puts Spain straight into a possible semi-final clash against Germany or Argentina where LLL expects La Selección to get their a**es handed to them unless they improve across the board over the next week.

Deeper inside the paper the wonderfully mad Tomás Roncero, who has been let loose in South Africa, writes that Spain has got back “its lyrics, its music, its prose, its verse, its tiki, its taka, its possession, its obsession...”

Even Luis Aragonés, who has been poking away at his former charges from the beginning of the tournament - as is his right Mr Marca Director, Eduardo Inda, who wrote a nasty, little editorial suggesting that the Euro 2008 winner “shuts up” - is a little chipper and notes that “the Spain we want to see was in the second half.

”How to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo’s - ahem - display in the Spain clash has left both Madridista papers in a bit of quandary. AS are less bent over Real Madrid’s spanking knee and so are happy to award the pouty-one zero points from three for his footballing stylings and snigger that he was “back to failing in a decisive game.”

Marca give him one point but did opine that the brave little Madrid soldier “walked alone with his eyes glazed and fury in his face.”

Ronaldo’s general hopelessness in the tournament gave Barcelona-based Sport a chance for a chuckle with Josep Maria Casanovas noting that the culé-for-life, product of La Masia and “great Barcelona signing, David Villa, had the Madrid star for breakfast in a spectacular manner before the eyes of the football world.”

But all the praise being thrown in Spain’s direction has got the blog genuinely thinking that it has lost the plot and has squashed its footballing compass.

Is it getting too old for this kind of (cough), as they say in Lethal Weapon?

Maybe La Furia Roja were back to their best? Maybe a final berth is in the bag?

Or maybe there are other voices in the wilderness who feel the same grumpy way as La Liga Loca?

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Portugal must celebrate, not analyse

Sergio Santos — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:57:00 GMT

The Portuguese team knew a resounding victory against North Korea would put them in a good position to qualify for the Last 16 of the World Cup - and not only did they do that, but they did it in style.

The comprehensive 7-0 rout is guaranteed to make headlines until the next fixture against Brazil, but the match was not quite as easy as the scoreline suggests.

Before Raul Meireles scored in the 28th minute, Portugal were struggling to break through their opponents’ organized defence and it was only after the second goal in the second half that the Koreans revealed their amateurishness and the floodgates opened.

Getting it right

Just like any other Portuguese, Carlos Queiroz didn’t like his team’s performance against the Ivory Coast, and made four changes to his starting XI for the second match. Simão, Tiago, Hugo Almeida and Miguel replaced Danny, Deco, Liédson and Paulo Ferreira respectively and with the exception of the Valencia right-back, they were very active throughout the match and repaid the gaffer’s faith with goals and assists.

Whether the trashing of DPRK can be attributed to those changes or to the gap in quality between the two sides is another issue, but the national manager will be pleased to see his players rising to the challenge. With this dazzling victory and with Ronaldo admitting Tiago played better, the team morale has certainly been boosted and any story of unrest in the Portuguese camp has instantly been quelled – at least for now.

Finally the ketchup gave in

Last week, Ronaldo downplayed his lack of goals for the national team - comparing goal flow to ketchup stuck in the bottle. Sometimes, you try and it doesn’t come out and then, out of the blue, it all come out. And sure enough that was precisely how it worked out for Portugal.

In 40 minutes, the national team managed to score six goals, a goal every six minutes and 40 seconds, which is an incredible ratio! And Ronaldo, who had hit the post against Ivory Coast and managed to hit the woodwork again against North Korea, finally put an end to his 16-month goal drought for the national team and with a very funny and ‘not-so-Ronaldo-ish’ goal

One step away from the Last 16

The Portuguese team is still not certain to be in the Last 16, but honestly only a disaster of epic proportions would send Ronaldo and his posse packing on Friday. Though both Ivory Coast and Portugal could well both finish the group with four points, goal difference heavily favours the Selecção. Since the Elephants are on -2 and Portugal are on +7, it would take something special to see Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men get through.

Regardless of that, a match against Brazil is always a good exercise to answer some nagging questions such as: can Fábio Coentrão replicate his good showings against the likes of Robinho and Luis Fabiano? Can Hugo Almeida or Liédson score against a top side? And, in Tiago, do Portugal finally have a replacement for Deco?

We shall know it that soon, so stay tuned amigos and força Portugal!

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Five signs it won't be Portugal's year

Sergio Santos — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:54:00 GMT

The match against Ivory Coast was more of the same old Portugal and unfortunately that same old is not enough for a team that has, or at least likes to think it has, genuine aspirations to win the World Cup.

There were no clear tactics or ideas and unless something changes fairly quickly, there’s a chance Portugal will fall at the first hurdle.

Prior to the match, the media and Carlos Queiroz painted a portrait of Portugal as the perfect family. Photo-ops, cosy safari trips and group interviews with big grins and planted questions artificially created the notion that Portugal are a serious World Cup contender when we really aren’t.

There’s no shame in that, let’s just do our best and leave South Africa as late as possible and with our pride intact.

Now, it may seem like the Portugeezer is on a crusade against the national manager, but yet again Queiroz proved why he lacks the boldness and tactical acumen to lead the national team.

Selecting Danny instead of Simão was a risky decision that ultimately backfired, but it was one made to inject some unpredictability to the team. The real problem however was the manager’s inability to read the game and adapt.

Queiroz ended up making three substitutions, but not a single one stirred things up: Simão replaced Danny, Tiago replaced Deco and Ruben Amorim replaced Raul Meireles – all pretty much straight swaps.

Why was Liedson – forced to fend off Touré and Zokora all by himself – not given a proper partner upfront at some point? Why not adopting a more attacking approach against a team not renowned for their defenders?

For a manager who imposed a minimum target of reaching the semi-finals, accepting this kind of performance is inexcusable.

On Monday, we’ll play against a North Korean side that impressed against Brazil. It will be a battle between a group of skilled prima donnas against a group of subpar players with tremendous work ethic. If the Selecção for some reason underestimate the Koreans, they might just be served up a piping-hot slice of humble pie.

For the record, here are the five things that hint 2010 may just be the new 2002 for Portugal in terms of World Cup prospects:

1) Portugal struggled against the likes of Cape Verde, Cameroon and Mozambique; both the media and the manager dismissed the importance of these matches, despite it being clear the players were not gelling.

2) After putting in a good performance against Cameroon, Nani was ruled out of the competition due to a shoulder injury. Some people questioned the real reason behind that move and, with the Manchester United winger revealing he would be match-fit again within a week, one cannot help but think there’s more to this story than first meets the eye. And to think Didier Drogba had surgery on his broken arm and came off the bench to play against Portugal.

3) Deco criticizing Queiroz at the end of the match shows one thing: that the bond and respect between players and manager may not be as great as we were led to believe.

4) Word around the Portugal camp and in the pressg is already starting to shift from “We can beat Brazil” to “We can finish in second place and still beat Spain”, even if Spain may not finish on top of their group.

5) Curiously, Queiroz slammed the Ivorians’ tactics, saying they were too defensive when in fact it was the African team that controlled the match for large periods. Apart from Ronaldo’s exquisite effort in the eleventh minute that hit the post, the Portuguese team failed to create clear cut opportunities and could have been stomped by the Elephants.

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