Euro: Group F: Portugal vs. Austria, 6/18/2016

[Live in the Now]

I feel that Ronaldo's skill has eroded quite a bit and the high goal totals he receives are at this point largely due to being the focal point of such a talented team. I don't really care about his behavior as long as he's not diving.

Anyway I don't think Portugal's failure is down to him at this point. It's largely because Porto, Benfica, and Sporting haven't been able to develop a #9. He's been out of position here. The interesting thing is that they've played pretty well other than his finishing. Andre Gomes played great in the first game and Quaresma played well here as did their defense. They'd be on four points if not for Vierinha making a simple mistake at the back post.

 

[hatterson]

Portugal lose, they finish third, likely not enough to go through.
Portugal draw, they finish on 3 points, like Iceland. At the moment Iceland have scored more goals so would go through. 3 points in 3rd place probably isn't enough but it could be okay.
Portugal win, they're fine.

3 points in 3rd with a neutral goal difference is all but guaranteed to go through. Even 2 points in 3rd has a decent chance based on how the final games play out.

In order for 3 points and neutral to miss one of the spots you'd have to have 4 of the 5 events happen below:

- Sweden beat Belgium and Ireland beat Italy
- Czechs beat Turkey or Turkey beat the Czechs by 5+ goals
- Ukraine beat Poland by 5+ goals and Northern Ireland avoid losing to Germany
- Wales and Slovakia avoid loss
- Romania win or Albania win by 4+

Granted there's a few chances where multiple teams can be on 3 points with neutral and goals for can be a tie breaker.

 

[Nordic*]

It's crazy how dominant Ronaldo, Messi and Zlatan are in their club teams, but totally useless on their respective national teams.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

It's crazy how dominant Ronaldo, Messi and Zlatan are in their club teams, but totally useless on their respective national teams.

Messi dragged his team to back to back finals and now favourites to win a trophy they haven't won in 23 years. Hardly useless.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Messi has by far the best teammates of those three. I don't hold it against Ronaldo that Portugal haven't won a trophy with him, they didn't do it with Eusebio either. It's a small country that will always have depth issues on their team and he has played in an international final and two semifinals with them which is a legit haul for that nation.

Whether Zlatan has gotten Sweden as far as he could, who knows, their best results happened without him (WC 94 and WC 58) but there's also no doubt he has often carried the team and the quality of his teammates worsened over the course of his career.

Meanwhile Messi plays for a two time WC winning nation and has various elite star players on his team. A Copa won't fix that problem, given the problems of Brazil the Copa should be a formality really. He needs to get that WC win in 2018.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Eilte stars in name only...half of those stars were walking wounded for both tournaments. He got little to no help on the offensive side of the ball.

LOL at the Copa being a formality.

 

[Evilo]

Portugal without Ronaldo is still better on paper than all of the teams of that awful group.
With Ronaldo they should have won this group easily.

They're underachieving. Big big time.

 

[hatterson]

Portugal has dominated both of their games but have had really bad finishing quality.

I think it's perfectly fair for your best attacking finisher to get a good chunk of the blame for that, especially when he's had a few really really good chances that he sent wide or missed and that's even excluding the missed pen.

 

[Edo]

Messi dragged his team to back to back finals and now favourites to win a trophy they haven't won in 23 years. Hardly useless.

Considering how poor CONMEBOL is, that isn't much of an accomplishment. We've seen Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil all win the Copa America since Messi started featuring for Argentina. Those 3 teams put together don't have as much quality as Argentina do without Messi, let alone with him. The blame for Argentina failing to win anything lies moreso with Aguero never being consistently healthy and Higuain consistently choking than anything Messi has done.

Portugal should have more talent considering how strong their domestic league is, but it's always been Ronaldo lugging them around. They can still win the tournament with Ronaldo taking over though. Much different dynamic between Ronaldo/Ibra and Portugal/Sweden though. Ibrahimovic isn't good enough to pull them through Italy/Belgium/Germany/England/Croatia/France/Spain. Ronaldo can.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Portugal without Ronaldo is still better on paper than all of the teams of that awful group.
With Ronaldo they should have won this group easily.

They're underachieving. Big big time.

They're pretty unlucky really. It wouldn't have taken much for them to sit pretty with 6 points and everyone anointing them favorites. As long as they make it out of the group - which is still pretty likely - they shouldn't be counted out as far as the 2nd round and QFs are concerned.

But Portugal have never achieved consistently. Portuguese underachievement vs inferior opposition goes *way* back. It's because they rarely have the type of players to play a results-focused style of football and perhaps because their mentality is a bit too up and down.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Considering how poor CONMEBOL is, that isn't much of an accomplishment. We've seen Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil all win the Copa America since Messi started featuring for Argentina. Those 3 teams put together don't have as much quality as Argentina do without Messi, let alone with him. The blame for Argentina failing to win anything lies moreso with Aguero never being consistently healthy and Higuain consistently choking than anything Messi has done.

Portugal should have more talent considering how strong their domestic league is, but it's always been Ronaldo lugging them around. They can still win the tournament with Ronaldo taking over though. Much different dynamic between Ronaldo/Ibra and Portugal/Sweden though. Ibrahimovic isn't good enough to pull them through Italy/Belgium/Germany/England/Croatia/France/Spain. Ronaldo can.

Where do you come up with this? You can't be this blind.

Although, your not wrong about what you go on to say. Although terrible coaching earlier in his career was more at fault than anything else.

 

[BMann]

It's crazy how dominant Ronaldo, Messi and Zlatan are in their club teams, but totally useless on their respective national teams.

[mod:Cristiano] was very effective in the CL final as well. Unlike Messi. Anyone who thinks the two are comparable in any way knows nothing, absolutely nothing about football.

But for Higuain, Crapacio and Messi missing what for him is a sitter Leo would already have two international senior cups to his name. Even Bale has performed better than [mod:Cristiano] and his team are far inferior to the supposed talent available on this Portuguese side.

 

[BMann]

Considering how poor CONMEBOL is, that isn't much of an accomplishment. We've seen Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil all win the Copa America since Messi started featuring for Argentina. Those 3 teams put together don't have as much quality as Argentina do without Messi, let alone with him. The blame for Argentina failing to win anything lies moreso with Aguero never being consistently healthy and Higuain consistently choking than anything Messi has done.

Portugal should have more talent considering how strong their domestic league is, but it's always been Ronaldo lugging them around. They can still win the tournament with Ronaldo taking over though. Much different dynamic between Ronaldo/Ibra and Portugal/Sweden though. Ibrahimovic isn't good enough to pull them through Italy/Belgium/Germany/England/Croatia/France/Spain. Ronaldo can.

Take a look at the world rankings. Look at recent encounters between CONMEBOL and UEFA. CONMEBOL comes out on top over a large sample of matches. The core of the best European teams is South American. Aside from Spain and Germany there are no decent teams in Europe. The sheer lack of ball retention and passing skills in this current tournament is stark.

The only thing UEFA comes out ahead of CONMEBOL is the standard of refereeing. CONMEBOL referees are shockingly bad.