With Fernando and William Carvalho, Portugal goes from barely making it out of the group to Real darkhorse contenders.
Now if only Bento has the balls to call up one of the plethora of their young midfield stars
Marcos Lopes= Manchester City
Joao Carlos= Liverpool
Bruno Fernandes= Udinese
Rafa- Braga
Joao Mario= Sporting
The first 2 recently had their first first team appearances, while Bruno Fernandes has been regularly starting for Udinese. The latter 2 have been on fire the past month or so.
Fernando is a beast, one of the best holding midfielders on the continent, the one player Porto has rejected multimillion dollar bids for while letting Moutinho, Guarin, etc go. You can replace those type of players, but a DM with all the attributes Fernando has (quick, strong, great with the ball at his feet, fantastic vision and outlet, great skill) is insanely hard to replace..thus keeping him unless the bid blows them away. They've rejected Inter and Juventus two years in a row.
William Carvalho is basically Sportings best break through player since C Ronaldo/Nani
Another great CM
Meireles and his tattooed ass gets finally stapled to the bench, as does Veloso and his weak presence in shielding the back 4 and overall ability to impose himself on a game.
Huge upgrades.
Now as I stated, just need to one of those young playmakers to get a chance. Such a shame the transition between this insanely talented u21 generation(Shame Bruma is done for the season
..super star young winger) is taking place now, if this world cup was in 2016 Ronaldo would finally have another Deco/Rui Costa to take some heat off him and give him quality service/dominating midfield/ and a easing up of being double/triple teamed.
Germany are my favourites to win. Brazil will be there as well...Spain too, if they go with their younger players like Isco, Thiago etc and Villa is in great form.