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| Saturday, 04 September 2010 01:13 |
Portugal U21s end Euro hopesPortugal U21 0-1 England U21 A lone Daniel Sturridge goal in the first half was enough to see the Portugal U21 team's dream of qualifying for the Euro 2011 dashed as the Portuguese will have to rebuild and start from scratch again.
Portugal could only do with a win in order to keep their hopes alive of finishing atop of Group 9 or, at least, be one of the best second-placed teams overall to qualify for the next phase of the competition. Instead, they let it all go up in flames and suffer a defeat and only have themselves to blame as the pack of promising Portuguese footballers came up very short when it mattered most. Portugal coach Oceano Cruz fielded a his team in a 4-3-3 formation with recent Manchester United signing Bebe playing as the lone striker, FC Porto's Ukra playing to his left and Vitoria Guimaraes' Pereirinha on the oppposite flank. The midfield combination of Santos, Simao and Castro were just dire in providing any sense of creativity to attack England's net. Portugal's lack of cohesion or ideas usually left Bebe alone up front, giving the English defence very little to do. As for Bebe, the Portuguese frontman, for the time being, is not Portugal's saviour to the senior team's striker crisis. The 20-year-old is still underdeveloped and can only hope that his education at Manchester Untied will groom him to be a feared marksman many wish him to be. Meanwhile, England looked very compact and worked as a unit as the team exchanged the ball with ease and were well-organised all over the pitch. So much so that in the 31st minute Cleverly threaded Sturridge a pin-perfect pass and the Chelsea man easily beat Sporting's Rui Patricio to the ball to the tuck away the game's only goal. Oceano tried to mix things up in the second half by introdcuing Rio Ave's Yazalde and, later, Everton's Joao Silva, forcing Bebe to play on the right, but the substitutions did very little to change the complexion of the game. England were more than comfortable in their game plan and did not seemed bothered by anything the Portuguese tried to instigate. Before the match ended, England should have been up by two goals as Natahan Delfouneso missed an open net in added time. Portugal were made to pay dearly for their lack of urgency and desperation and will have to regroup and learn from their mistakes if they want to qualify for Euro 2013. by Marco Pereira Keep up to date with all the latest news on Portuguese football with the PortuGOAL Twitter! |
Other than Ukra there was not much in the attack as the midfield was awful. The U-21's were disjointed other than a few players like Ukra, Silva, Bebe, Rui P, and Carrico there is not much to get excited about.