Where did it go wrong for Portugal in this World Cup?

Date: 29th June 2014 at 3:57am
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From the moment the pairings were announced, Group G quickly became among the most hotly discussed and debated quartet leading up to this year’s World Cup.

The quartet, which was comprised of Germany, Portugal, Ghana, and the United States had all the makings of a “Group of Death”; indeed, as a result of the quality of teams within the group, it would be tough for all involved. However, most had picked the Stars and Stripes as well as the Black Stars to have the most difficulty due to the perceived superiority of the European powerhouse duo spearheaded by the likes of Thomas Muller and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Well, as we are all now well aware, 16 teams have headed home, while 16 fortunate ones will battle it out to see who will lift the coveted trophy in just over a fortnight, and although some of these squads are of little surprise as they rolled through their groups with little trouble, others had to fight it out tooth and nail for their spots. And as a result, there were some teams that shocking bowed out without a whimper–Spain in particular comes to mind–as well as others whose absence is of little surprise as they were not expected to make it far in the first place.

Portugal is an interesting case because the Iberian nation were ranked among the top ten sides in the world as per FIFA. Now while certainly the rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, the Euro 2004 runners up were expected to, nonetheless, be joining Germany in the round of 16 and their talismanic captain, Cristiano Ronaldo was touted to be battling it out for the tournament’s top scorer along the likes of perpetual rival Lionel Messi, Neymar, and the aforementioned Muller, among others.

The 29-year-old, whose four goals were enough to undo Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sweden en route to securing a tournament berth, became his nation’s highest scorer when he netted as Portugal cruised to a comfortable friendly victory over Cameroon in March.

As a result of his brilliant showings for both club and country that saw him finally unseat Messi from his position as the world’s best footballer, many had expected the Real Madrid star to continue in this same vein of form in Brazil. Yet, his brief cameo in his third World Cup was by far below his top notch standards, most significantly due to an ongoing knee injury he had been carrying during his campaign with Los Blancos.

In fact, so disconcerting was the injury that the player’s own doctor expressed his concern that the two-time Ballon d’Or winner was endangering his career by continuing to play as opposed to taking a much needed rest. Still, being the ultimate competitor that he is, the Madeira native nonetheless still featured in all three matches and recorded a solitary assist and goal, the latter of which was gifted to him due to a comedy of errors from Ghana’s goalkeeper and defense in the final group stage clash. And so ended yet another frustrating international campaign for the team that despite a plethora of stars to don its kit over the years, have still failed to win any major silverware.

So, what went wrong? Many point to the opening clash with Germany, which was anticipated to be a closely contested encounter, not the 4-0 humiliation that Paulo Bento’s men were subject to–the worst ever World Cup loss in their history.

Due to his aforementioned injury, Ronaldo took forever to get going, recording over 20 shots  just to finally score his sole goal that made him the first ever Portuguese player to net in three consecutive tournaments. Still, football is a team sport and obviously the onus cannot be on one sole player–regardless of how talented he is–to do all the heavy lifting.

Simply put, if die Mannschaft were disciplined and raring to go, the Seleccao were sloppy and appeared to be just awakening from a mid-day siesta. Defender Pepe, who has become well known to La Liga fans for his combative attitude, received a silly red card after entangling with Muller in the first half that obviously did the already floundering side no favors.

There was a clear lack of communication between attack and defense, such that despite the caliber of players available on the pitch, Portugal were unable to connect in order to really provide any threat to their opponents. Nor were they largely able to sharpen their attack against the United States,with Ronaldo having another disappointing game, despite popping up with a late equalizing assist to keep their already dismal World Cup hopes alive, and ultimately their win over Ghana proved to be just merely for pride.

Indiscipline, sluggishness, ineptitude, lackadaisical. These are all words that can describe Portugal’s poor World Cup campaign. And these are issues that they will certainly be keen to learn from and amend as they prepare to redeem themselves during their upcoming EURO 2016 qualifiers set to take place this fall.

For Portugal fans, by the time September rolls around, they will have taken note of their failures and successfully modified their approach so as to make Brazil 2014 a distant memory and not something of habit.

 

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