Joy v Gloom (Portugal National Football Team)

Member Name: thehud

Product:	Portugal National Football Team
Date:	27/06/04 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Football with a smile on its face

Disadvantages: Too good for us

And now the inquests begin, while the cheerful and affable hosts of Euro 2004 go sailing on into the last four, convinced that this is going to be their year?

I?ll come back to a dissection of an insipid England performance shortly, but firstly this section is about the Portuguese and pride of place must go to them, so here goes.

In the run up to the Portugal v England quarter final clash, we had all the normal tub thumping faux optimism which always surrounds England?s assaults on major competitions ? on a man for man basis THEY said, England were superior throughout the side, and that we MUST start as favourites. Portugal were a bunch of fancy dans with a soft centre, who flattered to deceive, who had little punch in front of goal.

Well eat those words, xenophobes, for this Portugal side does have resolve and backbone, and a damned fine football team.

They started off the tournament with Couto in defence, but quickly found him out and opted instead for their new young braves, turfing out the golden oldies and were much the better for it. Christiano Ronaldo seemed destined to be constantly a second half super sub despite some match winning performances, but this time he was in from the start to give Cole and Neville reason to be very UNcheerful.

With the evergreen Luis Figo on the other flank there was every reason to believe we would see some classic confrontations, and so it proved, with Portugal emerging as by far the better side, even though it took the lottery of penalties to settle things.

Rui Costa came back to deliver when it mattered most, but remains on the periphery, though I guess he might stay in the side now, but the win against Portugal was all about a superior, flowing and flexible midfield simply overwhelming a tired, out of sorts and overrated
English combination.

Good luck to Portugal, they showed that exciting attack is always the best policy and gave us a good run for our money. Hopefully, they can finally bring home the bacon and actually win a major tournament ? they will never have a better chance.

Which brings me back to Inn-ger-land?

This was going to be the BIG CHANCE, when the best midfield combination in the world would see us emerge victorious once and for all, showing Johnny Foreigner where to get off.

Well, let me tell you, Wayne Rooney may be a brilliant player and they might have been worthy winners against the Swiss and Croatians, but England will always struggle against world class sides, and especially so when they score first, because they will then inevitably invite opponents on to them and simply try to hold out.

The big difference against Croatia was that we fell behind and simply had to go for it. Against both France and Portugal, the hope of an early goal simply made us forget what we?re actually good at, high pressure football. We are just not good enough at defending to soak up the pressure ourselves ? we have to go for it in order to win games.

That said, Gary Neville, Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole were simply superb, giving phenomenal performances and demonstrating that we have some of the best defenders in the world, just a shame that Calamity James cannot dominate and the midfield leaves our guys hopelessly exposed by retreating onto their toes.

Scholes and Beckham just looked dead on their feet, and there was simply no creativity when Rooney went off. It was clear that it was his ability, insight, foraging and link up play which had made us look something like the real thing for so long, and that without him we just had nothing in our e
ngine room.

It?s now time to move on, and it might be that we should stay with Eriksson and Beckham, but on this showing I can take them or leave them.

Summary: