2018 FIFA WORLD CUP PREVIEW – PORTUGAL NATIONAL TEAM
Summary of the Team
Portugal are going into the world cup attempting to be the 4th nation to be the holders of both World cup and the European Championship others being France Spain and Germany. Portugal have a top 2 player in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo who’s surrounded by a lot of veteran players such as Quaresma, Pepe, Bruno Alves, Moutinho, but they’ve also got a great mix of younger generation with players such as Bernardo Silva, Gelson Martins, Goncalo Guedes and many more. Portugal are as I’ve said the current European champions and are coached by Fernando Santos who likes to start everything from a defensive point of view. If you’re watching Portugal, don’t expect it to be pretty football as we’ve all seen in the euros when they weren’t a team that would create a chance after chance, but they were so well tactically drilled that it made them become champions, furthermore in the Confed Cup last year, Portugal didn’t play the most exciting football either which is why we shouldn’t expect them to run riot when it comes to the world cup. We can expect them to play defensive against the bigger nations and then when they come up against worse nations we shouldn’t expect them to batter those teams, it’s most likely going to be a 1-0 or a 2-0 game when they face someone weaker because Portugal simply aren’t a goal scoring machine even with Ronaldo. There wasn’t much controversy concerning team selection, although Nani and Renato Sanches aren’t there this year, but their failure to succeed at the club level in the past couple years really led to them not being selected which is fair enough, especially when there’s better players in their positions now.
Road To The Finals
Portugal had a relatively easy qualifying campaign, it was literally them and Switzerland battling for the first place the whole campaign. Other teams involved were Hungary and three awful teams In Faroe Islands, Andorra and Latvia. Portugal started the campaign with a loss to Switzerland away, but that was their only slip up. Portugal won every remaining game, but Switzerland kept being ahead of them throughout the whole campaign which eventually let them meeting up in Portugal on the last day. Portugal needed a win to get the 1st place and to qualify automatically because over the course of the campaign, their goal difference was better and of course Portugal returned the favour by beating Switzerland 2-0 and getting into the world cup without needing the playoffs. Portugal scored 32 goals during the campaign which is 3 per game, but once again they did play some absolutely horrible teams so there’s no surprise there. Portugal’s top scorer was Ronaldo with an incredible 15 goals which is basically half of their goals, Andre Silva added 9 and then a few other players scored 1-2 goals. The deadly partnership of Ronaldo and Andre Silva up front definitely showed that they can connect really well and will give Portugal confidence going into the world cup.
The History of Portugal's National Team
Portugal have had a relatively successful history, but they didn’t really become football’s elite until a couple decades back. Up until 1986, Portugal had only made one world cup in 1966 where they won 3rd place led by Eusebio, but before and after that they weren’t anything special. In 1986 they got knocked out in the group stages and then didn’t qualify until 2002. 2002 was their 3rd world cup campaign and ever since, Portugal have become one of the biggest footballing nations in the world, making every world cup and euros since and having some great tournament runs. In 2002 portugal got knocked out in the group stage, but in 2006 they got 4th place, in 2010 they were knocked out in R16 and in 2014 they got knocked out in the group stages. In their first 6 world cup Portugal have made two semis, one Round of 16 and got knocked out in the groups 3 times. They are still looking to win their first world cup. Portugal have had good success in the Euros, they were runners up once in 2004, made the Semis in 1984, 2000 and 2012 and won the tournament in 2016, they’ve also made the quarters in 96 and 08. Never knocked out in the groups. And finally Portugal won 3rd place in 2017 Confederations Cup. Portugal have had some really great players over their history such as Eusebio who scored 9 goals in a single world cup in 1966, then there was Figo in the early 2000s and now they have one of the greatest ever in Cristiano Ronaldo who’s got an incredible 81 international goals and is the most capped Portuguese player with 149. A storied history for sure, most of the great things happening more recently and Portugal will look to add a world cup to that.
Key Players
Cristiano Ronaldo: What is there to say about the importance of Cristiano Ronaldo? He’s the most capped player, the top scorer, the captain, the top 2 player in the world, a legend. Ronaldo surprisingly has not had a great world cup in his career yet, but at the peak of his goal scoring years, surely Cristiano will drop one of the best tournaments of his career, or at least he’ll need to do so for Portugal to have a chance. Ronaldo has been an absolutely fantastic leader for the national team, let’s just look back on the Euros when he got injured, he didn’t sulk up, instead he literally coached the team and gave them the confidence to go out there and eventually win it. Many people would call him a bad leader which is simply not true because Cristiano has showed that he can lead a team on the pitch and off the pitch. If Ronaldo is at his absolute best then there’s no team that Portugal can’t beat, he’s the player that any country would kill to have and Portugal are lucky to have. Ronaldo easily the biggest key for Portugal.
Pepe: Pepe is one of Portugal’s most experienced players, now he’s a hothead but Portugal will need him to be cool and calm and be the leader of the back line. Pepe was one of the best Portuguese players during their triumph in the Euros if not the best and with the experience that he has, he is definitely going to be crucial for Portugal especially since Portugal tend to play more of a defensive type football against strong opposition. Pepe is a serial winner on club level as well so he knows what it takes to win a competition. He may be 35 years old, but he’s still a very good defender and will be the leader of that Portuguese back line. I expect Pepe to have a good tournament and he’ll need to do so for Portugal to succeed against stronger opposition in the knockouts.
Andre Silva: Andre Silva is a young striker who has already shown the world that he can score goals. Portugal will absolutely need someone else other than Ronaldo to score goals and Andre Silva will be likely to be partnered up with Ronaldo up front. Silva scored 9 goals in the qualifiers which is very good, but he’ll have to bring that type of form to the world cup. Because Portugal don’t really have anyone else other than Ronaldo to score goals, that will make Silva very important, he’s a proven goal scorer on club level and of course he’s good a good ratio with the national team. This is his first big tournament and I believe he’s going to be huge for the Portuguese national team.
Possibilities, Predictions and Expectations:
Portugal have been put in a group B with Spain, Morocco and Iran. Portugal are expected to get out of the group stages, however I don’t think they’ll win the group or have it as easy as expected. Because Spain are the better side, I think Portugal will finish below them, but also I think Morocco can give them a run for their money when it comes to 2nd place as they have some great ballers. Now although I think Morocco will make it hard on Portugal, I’d still expect them to advance because they simply have a better side and have Ronaldo. I think Portugal will lose to Spain, but then have a straight forward win against Iran and beat Morocco by like one goal.
In the R16 they could face a team from group A (Uruguay, Egypt, Russia or Saudi Arabia). I think if they meet Uruguay which seems to be the most realistic choice it could go either way, but if they manage to avoid Uruguay then I reckon Portugal would beat any of the other three sides, they already beat Egypt in a friendly this year, and beat Russia in the confed cup last year in Russia and Saudi Arabia isn’t really a threat. Portugal would probably meet Argentina or France in the quarters and I doubt they could beat any of those two nations. I don’t think Portugal will have the type of luck they had two years ago. I think they could either get knocked out by Uruguay in R16 or at best lose in the Quarters, there’s quite a few better teams than Portugal in this tournament. In terms of bets I’d say go for Portugal getting eliminated in the R16 at 2.62 or the quarter finals at 3.50 and Over 5.5 group points at 1.73 because they should beat Iran and Morocco. Odds based on WilliamHill.
Portugal’s Final 23 man Squad
Goalkeepers: Anthony Lopes (Lyon), Beto (Goztepe), Rui Patricio (Sporting Lisbon).
Defenders: Bruno Alves (Rangers), Cedric Soares (Southampton), Jose Fonte (Dalian Yifang), Mario Rui (Napoli), Pepe (Besiktas), Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund), Ricardo Pereira (Porto), Ruben Dias (Benfica).
Midfielders: Adrien Silva (Leicester), Bruno Fernandes (Sporting Lisbon), Joao Mario (West Ham), Joao Moutinho (Monaco), Manuel Fernandes (Lokomotiv Moscow), William Carvalho (Sporting).
Forwards: Andre Silva (AC Milan), Bernardo Silva (Manchester City), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Gelson Martins (Sporting Lisbon), Goncalo Guedes (Valencia), Ricardo Quaresma (Besiktas).
Predicted XI
Rui Patricio
Cedric Pepe Fonte Guerreiro
B.Silva Moutinho Carvalho Joao Mario
Ronaldo A.Silva
Group Stage Schedule: UK TIME
15/06/2018 – vs Spain 7 PM
20/06/2018 – vs Morocco 1 PM
25/06/2018 – vs Iran 7 PM
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