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| Monday, 06 September 2010 13:50 |
We have ourselves to blame - Portugal U21 boss OceanoCoach cites lack of consistency Portugal’s high scoring draw with Cyprus on Friday night somewhat overshadowed another disappointing result for Portuguese football earlier on in the evening, as the country’s under-21 team were eliminated from qualification for next summer’s European Championships.
Drawn in Group 9 of qualifying, Portugal started their campaign with a convincing 4-1 with over Lithuania, but the side led by Oceano suffered a frustrating run of three away matches without victory, putting them well behind group leaders Greece and England. However, with both sides still to travel to Portugal, Oceano’s men still had a chance of turning things around if they could record two victories. Greece were successfully dispatched 2-1 in November, which was followed by another victory (1-0) over Lithuania, but Portugal still needed to beat England in Barcelos to avoid early elimination. The result was a disappointing performance and a 1-0 defeat that leaves Portugal out of contention with a home match against Macedonia still to play on Tuesday. Overall, the team won three, lost three and drew one of their seven matches, and Oceano says inconsistency cost his side. “We have to look at ourselves for the qualifying. The games did not go as planned, we lacked the consistency of Greece and England,” the former Sporting man told a press conference. “A qualification campaign is almost like a league championship - the most consistent teams finish at the top. We played some brilliant games, but we had some others where we were not as strong as we should have been. We must congratulate Greece, who were much stronger than us. Not from a technical point of view, but over the course of the competition.” Keep up to date with all the latest news on Portuguese football with the PortuGOAL Twitter!
Comments (1)
Resign
1
Tuesday, 07 September 2010 09:41
Paulo-Australia
enough said
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