Portugal player ratings versus Spain
Eduardo and Coentrao… for a change
  As has been the norm this World Cup, Portugal’s most impressive performers were at the back.
Fabio Coentrao again showed he is a true shining talent, but there can be no doubts as to the PortuGOAL man of the match – Eduardo – who kept the Spaniards at bay for over an hour with a series of breathtaking saves.
Eduardo: 9.5/10 PortuGOAL man of the match
A cat-like leap to turn a Fernando Torres shot round the post in the first minute set the tone as Eduardo proved an almost impregnable shield against the incessant Spanish attack. Further superb saves in the 3rd, 6th, 60th, 69th, and 76th minutes kept Portugal in the game, and as a disconsolate Eduardo left the pitch bathed in tears one could not help feeling the Braga man deserved a better supporting cast.
Ricardo Costa: 4.5/10
Preferred at right-back to Paulo Ferreira and Miguel, Queiroz’s surprise selection back-fired badly. Was all at sea in a torrid first 15 minutes, with Villa given far too much room to cut inside with his darting runs. Improved slightly for the next hour, but was always a weakness and ended up somewhat harshly being red-carded for a flailing arm that caught Capdevila in the face, apparently unintentionally.
Ricardo Carvalho: 8/10
Another excellent showing from the Chelsea centre-back. Despite being overworked, Carvalho stuck to his task gamely, making crucial interceptions all night long, most notably when throwing himself at a goal-bound Xavi Alonso shot in the 36th minute.
Bruno Alves: 7/10
Created a solid wall with his centre-back partner, forcing Spain to pierce Portugal’s defence from the wings. Did well to stem the tidal wave of attacks raining down on the Seleccao and ended the game as a centre-forward as Portugal desperately sought an unlikely equaliser.
Fabio Coentrao: 8.5/10
The Benfica defender has been Portugal’s revelation this World Cup, and another match full of controlled aggression, excellent anticipation and intelligent positioning kept the marauding Sergio Ramos largely at bay. Even found time to lend his support to the attack with speedy and skilful incursions down the left flank.
Pepe: 6/10
Worked hard but obviously lacked match sharpness and was powerless to prevent Spain’s midfielders from passing the ball around at will. One of the few Portugal players to show any aggression, but had played just 60 minutes of competitive football in the last seven months and it showed.
Tiago: 7/10
After coming into the side and playing a blinder against North Korea, Tiago kept Deco out of the team. Produced a powerful shot when set up by Coentrao in the 20th minute that stung Casillas’ hands and came close with a header in the 42nd minute, again benefiting from a Coentrao assist. As for his defensive duties, worked hard but was powerless to disrupt Spain’s dominant possession play.
Meireles: 6/10
The FC Porto midfielder has been one of Portugal’s most consistent players over the past year and has had a good World Cup as a whole, but was chasing shadows for most of tonight. One dreadful mistake on the stroke of half time required emergency action from Carvalho and Alves to prevent a goal. Did produce a peach of a cross in the 38th minute that Almeida almost headed into the net.
Simao: 5.5/10
Anonymous for most of the match, Simao was always a yard behind the pace and never looked like troubling the Spanish defence. A good servant for Portugal over the years, but it is clear his days as a world-class winger are long behind him.
Ronaldo: 5.5/10
Isolated and frustrated for practically the whole 90 minutes, Ronaldo can rightly point to a lack of service, but did little with the ball when it did arrive at his feet. Slipped back into his annoying habit of shooting from all angles and ranges at every opportunity rather than trying to link with his team-mates.
Hugo Almeida: 7/10
Worked hard for the team and caused the Spanish rearguard a few moments of concern with his height and strength. Could not get quite enough on a header in the first half. Started the second half strongly, getting more involved, and on one occasion caused panic in the Spanish defence with a fine break and cross that was nearly turned into his own net by Puyol. Mystifyingly substituted during his most productive period.
Substitutes
Danny: 5.5/10
A display that typified Danny’s World Cup. Plenty of running, no lack of effort but little of any consequence. The Zenit St Petersburg forward is clearly a big talent, but has been unable to transpose his ability onto the international stage as of yet.
Liedson: 5/10
Brought on by Carlos Queiroz as a last-ditch effort to give Portugal some kind of goal threat, but hardly got a touch as Spain played keep-ball in the final 20 minutes.
Pedro Mendes: 5.5/10
Came on for the exhausted Pepe and to try and help Portugal string some passes together in the midfield, but by that time the Spaniards were bossing the game and the Sporting man was unable to make any impact.
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Ferreira managed to have an even game against Gervinho who is much faster than Villa...... and out of the Blue Queiroz picks our worse player on Villa's favourite side of the field?
Its such a pathetic selection that one can only feel that there is more at play here.
Pepe should never have started! He should've been used as a sub at most. Deco should've started with Liedson. I felt that Portugal had the initial psychological advantage over Spain and with an initial full out attacking approach they could've broken Spain's rhythm. Instead they fell back and allowed Spain the luxury of growing in Stature with every passing minute!
With regards to Almeida I think that Liedson should've been upfront with him and Cristiano as the link from the midfield. Cristiano can change sides so Sabrosa's omission would've been fine.
With 2 strikers upfront Spain would've become vulnerable.
You would have 2 attackers keeping the defence split with the possibility of having a fast advancing Cristiano or even Mirelles.
Spain's midfield outnumbered Portugal by one! The missing link to gain midfield supremacy was Deco and not Pepe.
The World Cup is over for us but our problems remain unresolved!
Queiroz should go but then we will be facing another climb up the hill of success!
For him to stay my anger tells me that the Portuguese authorities should investigate his financial affairs. Not only his but also those of certain close family members. You all might think that I'm exaggerating and you could be right but then anyone who has victory on his mind would not actively introduce weaknesses into his own Team!
Ferreira and Miguel became solid choices after initial stumbles ...but Costa gets the call?
Almeida was the only threat upfront but instead of getting extra support from the fast Liedson he was taken out of the equation.
So I ask myself ......were the Selections based on mind blocking Fear .......or should we become suspicious of Queiroz's integrity?
My Head tells me that instead of firing Queiroz we should force him to bring in another Portuguese Football Brain to share the future emotional turmoil and Selections with him. Someone with experience. Something similar to the Joachim Louw and Klinsman combination for Germany a few years ago.
But my Furious Broken Heart which Fears future disasters tells me that we should immediately fire him and have the authorities investigate his financial affairs to the Core!
Although we all share Pain of another failed World Cup.
I think that the time has come to set our Hearts aside and apply logic to the problems we face.
We as a Nation we are guilty of allowing our emotions cloud our judgment but we have to change our mindset to truly Develop! Not only in Football but in everything we do in life!
Deco's omission by an obviously revengeful Queiroz should serve as a Lesson to all of us!
With Anger and Fear we just like Queiroz ....are Lost within the blindness of our minds!
THIS HAS TO STOP!
WE NEED A FUTURE!
WE NEED VISION!
FOR PORTUGAL !
His line up looked good. 4-3-3, but they didn't seem to play that. For some reason he had them hold back and defend. Then taking the striker off before a goal is a crazy move. Playing talent out of position is another bad idea. Putting too much pressure on one guy that is already under too much is not understanding the player and just hoping for a miracle.
I don't get the fascination with this guy. Flashes don't make a career, consistant performance does.
What Portugal needs to do is help bring up and develop Sa, and other youngsters.
He's been awful from the moment he walked into Inter and they were delighted to get rid of him.
Even his last season at Porto was unspectacular, and as a Porto fan I wasn't that disappointed that he left. On his day he could be fantastic, but all too often he would just give the ball away, fail to track back and help out defensively, do pointless stepovers and trivelas that never worked.
And just think of this - if the Special One Jose Mourinho couldn't get the best out of him, then who exactly can?
Eduardo was outstanding. Came up big when called upon.
Coentrao was a huge surprise and find. I'm a Benfiquista and I didn't/couldn't believe it.
Costa was a surprise pick after playing so nervously the previous match. He gave up as much room as Ferreira and wasn't as good as Miguel going forward. We never found someone for the right side.
Simao in my opinon was awful.
Lastly let me just say that the substitutions were once again suspect.
Why exactly did Almeida get pulled for Danny, who also had a bad tourney. Danny is not a forward so he went wide and Ronaldo pinched in, making them both useless.
Mendes for Pepe instead of an attacking player?
I understand Liedson, since we needed a forward at that point. Why we didn't have one for a portion of the game, I don't know.
I guess that we all expected more after seeing the defense and Eduardo play so well.
Its time to completely sweep the roster clean and rebuild a new team. The Sporting, Benfica, and Porto youth teams need to focus on developing new talent. Forget about importing all these south americans. We need to start now or the national team will go underground in the near future.
Surely the tournament that Eduardo had (especially his games against Brazil and Spain) will make him a hot commodity this transfer season. He made all the right decisions and made some tremendous saves and was very unfortunate that the Villa's shot rebounded right back to him.
I hope that he will be starting for a big club very soon.
The same goes for Coentrao....he had a tournament to remember and will really help us at Euro (when hopefully we'll have Bosingwa back).
Ronaldo didn't play his best again but I think a lot of that just highlights how badly we need a creative midfielder (or two) to get him involved more. Our inability to score in 3 out of 4 games that we played obviously highlights our need to be able to hold onto the ball better. We can counterattack well and maintain possession against the smaller teams, but when we play someone strong in possession, we need to have midfielders that can disrupt their play and keep the ball from them at times. We'll never play just like Spain because it's not our style, but you can't score without the ball and against Ivory Coast, Brazil, and Spain we just didn't have enough of the ball to score.
Conversely, the game against N Korea demonstrates what we can do when we are stronger in possession. We can DEMOLISH teams if we can hold onto the ball.
I said it before the tournament: the lack of solid midfield play would really hurt us, and it seems it was our downfall. I do think the lack of a solid striking core hurts, but not as much as our woes at midfield.
I'm glad that we escaped the group of death and only conceded one goal in 4 matches though. The world cup surely won't be the same for me without Portugal there but all is not lost and remember at one point it didn't even look like we were going to South Africa at all.
Let's all keep our heads up and hope for positive changes in the near future. Maybe we can make a serious run at Euro 2012 if all goes well.
Forca Portugal.
Quaresma did not deserve a call up but a in form or near form Queresma would been ideal for this game but I have given up on Queresma. I have no problem with welcoming him back if he can regain some form. It in the hands of Quaresma to regain his form.