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| Friday, 02 September 2011 20:58 |
Cyprus 0-4 PortugalMuch-needed win for Bento and co Following what must surely rank amongst his toughest seven days as a coach, Paulo Bento will have been a relieved man to see his Portugal side despatch a dogged Cyprus 4-0 in Nicosia this evening. A half-time lead thanks to a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty looked set the Seleccao up perfectly for a comfortable victory, but the away side were made to work by their opponents, who had been reduced to ten men when Dobrasinovic was dismissed for a second bookable offence. A second from Ronaldo, followed by strikes from substitutes Hugo Almeida and Danny, gave Portugal a 4-0 win which leaves them top of Group H.
After a week of surprises, Paulo Bento produced none in his starting eleven, with Bruno Alves replacing Carvalho as expected, Ruben Micael replacing the out-of-favour Carlos Martins in midfield, and Helder Postiga once again starting up front ahead of Hugo Almeida.
The opening ten minutes presented the game in microcosm. Portugal enjoyed the lion’s share of the possession, with the main attacking thrust coming from Ronaldo, Nani, Joao Pereira and Fabio Coentrao, with Postiga often dropping deeper in an attempt to pull his marker out of position. It was a patient, composed opening from Bento’s men, with an early mix-up between Bruno Alves and Rui Patricio the only moment of concern. Portugal’s first real opening came after twelve minutes. Moutinho, who once again performed his midfield conductor duties with a calm efficiency throughout, unlocked the Cyprus defence with a slide-rule pass intended for the onrushing Pereira. The Sporting right-back’s effort was charged down by the alert Georgallides. Ronaldo and Nani were troubling Cyprus in the wide areas, with the former cutting inside after fifteen minutes and letting fly, but his shot was fairly tame, and straight at the goalkeeper. The home side launched the occasional foray forward, but were in the main unable to keep possession for any great length of time, making the jobs of Patricio, Pepe and Alves that much easier. Pepe also made his presence felt at the other end of the pitch, and but for a point-blank, close-range save from Georgallides, the Real Madrid man would have opened the scoring after Moutinho’s free-kick found him unmarked inside the six-yard box. At this point, the only concern was that Portugal would somehow fail to convert their dominance into a lead, but just after the half-hour mark, referee Gianluca Rocchi averted any unpleasant thoughts when he awarded the Seleccao a penalty. Dobrasinovic, who had earlier been booked for a fairly innocuous challenge on Postiga, left his arm up in air as Moutinho fired a shot in, and the Italian official was on the spot to award the spot-kick and brandish a second yellow. Ronaldo converted with ease. Cyprus, incensed by the sending-off, immediately looked to equalise, but Charambalides could only strike a free-kick into the wall, after Ruben Micael was cautioned for a foul on Okkas. Ronaldo returned the favour to a Cypriot wall moments later, and half-time sounded with Portugal firmly in control. Late flurry highlights tough second halfDespite their numerical disadvantage, Cyprus began the second half in aggressive fashion, winning two early corners and generally giving Portugal, who were slow to emerge from the dressing room in terms of their mental state, something of a fright. Georgallides once again denied Ronaldo in the fiftieth minute after a fine ball from Nani played his former teammate in, and Coentrao was desperately unlucky to see his effort strike the inside of the post; but for much of the second half, the Seleccao huffed and puffed to little effect. More incisive opponents might have punished Portugal for their disjointedness, but Cyprus persevered with what at times resembled an 8-1 formation, and threatened only sporadically on the counter-attack. Okkas was wrongly adjudged to be offside in the 77th minute, with the Cypriot captain clean through on Patricio’s goal. The let-off galvanised Portugal, who proceeded to net three times in the closing eight minutes. First up was Ronaldo, who received the ball on the left-hand side of the area, barrelled into space, and slotted beyond Georgallides, after a heroic resistance from the Omonia Nicosia man. Ronaldo then created the third moments later, bamboozling his markers before squaring for substitute Hugo Almeida, who tapped home the simplest of goals. The heads of the home side visibly dropped at this point, and with goal difference likely to play a vital role in the final table, Portugal pressed for a fourth. It arrived in stoppage time from Danny, another substitute. The Zenit St. Petersburg man effortlessly controlled a lofted pass from Moutinho, shrugged off a challenge, and side-footed home to put the final gloss on the scoreline. The result leaves Portugal top of Group H on 13 points. Norway, who defeated Iceland 1-0 earlier in the evening, are also on 13, but with both sides holding a 1-0 win over the other, the Seleccao’s superior goalscoring record remains the difference. Norway travel to Denmark (who currently sit on 10 points) this coming Tuesday, whilst Portugal’s remaining two fixtures are at home to Iceland (October 7th) and away in Denmark (October 11th). After a difficult week, Paulo Bento and his squad are still very much alive. Goals: [0-1] Ronaldo 35’ [0-2] Ronaldo 82’ [0-3] Almeida 83’ [0-4] Danny 90+2’ Portugal: Rui Patricio; Joao Pereira, Pepe, Bruno Alves, Fabio Coentrao; Raul Meireles, Joao Moutinho, Ruben Micael (Miguel Veloso, 63’); Cristiano Ronaldo, Helder Postiga (Hugo Almeida, 76’), Nani (Danny, 85’). Ben Shave |
First of all, this was a strong win. We dominated them until the very end. I know the only goal until the 80th minute was a penalty by Ronaldo but that doesn't mean they were playing badly.
I'll admit the first 10 minutes were a little lacklustre but that's normal. Players often need to get into the rhythm of the other team. But they dominated the rest of the game. The lack of scoring was due to a number of things. Including, a few nice saves by the Cypriot goalkeeper, strong defensive play by the Cypriot defenders and just some bad luck.
Football is like that sometimes, a team could play brilliantly and not be rewarded for it. But in this case they were and justifiably rewarded. The possession and shots on net prove that.
Second, no one played badly in this game and that includes Veloso and Postiga. I was a bit surprised that Postiga started ahead of Almeida but he still created a few chances and rarely lost the ball. The team did step it up a notch when Almeida came into the game I'll admit. Regardless, competition for starting roles are a positive thing for the National team.
Veloso fired a strong shot from just outside the box that the Cyprus keeper stopped. Veloso is the latest to audition for the third midfielder position along with Andre Santos, Carlos Martins and Ruben Micael. None of them have distinguished themselves yet. I think if Veloso stays healthy this year he has a good chance to start alongside Miereles and Moutinho.
The standout performance in this game was who else but Cristiano Ronaldo. Two goal and an assist. The team is using him much better now. They're not relying too much on him and they're letting him play his game. As a result everyone around him is better who. He's playing so unselfishly for Portugal right now. He could have fired home a shot for a hat trick but he passed it to Almeida for the third goal.
While Messi! Messi! on the other hand failed to score again in back to back games for an increasingly mediocre Argentina.
Forca!!!
I know a lot of the bloggers here are indifferent about the way we played , but you only have to go back to Quieroz.
So things are better.
I agree that Postiga is wasteful and Nelson Oliviera would be a better option.
Yes, but if we lose that last game against Denmark (good possibility), we would finish third and out of the Euro 2012.
A win by either Norway or Denmark will have Portugal going into the final game with 2nd place almost guarantee by our superior goal avg.
A win by Denmark on Tuesday seems to be the best result for Portugal. We'll be going into the final game against Denmark needing only a draw for 1st place, and with 2nd place in the bag.
Assuming we beat Iceland of course.
Carvalho is a master of playing the offside trap.
The reason he left the training ground was because he felt it was unfair to be chosen over Pepe. He had been training everyday and Pepe missed some practices, he thought he should have been first choice. Since it was Pepe who was, he became furious. When asked if he went to Bento to talk to him first before leaving, he admitted that he was furious and disoriented, and left without saying anything.
When asked about Bento's accusations of turning his back on his teammates and his country, he says Bento is making the situation worse.He also accuses Bento of taking advantage of the situation. He also says that Bento spent the whole interview one day before the game talking about him when he should have been talking about the upcoming game against Cyprus.
He has already spoken to Mourinho and says that everyone at Madrid is willing to help him and that they will always consider him their number 1.
Ricardo Carvalho is supposed to give an interview today and give more details to what occurred on wednesday. I hope he clears the air and reveals exactly what happened. Unlike many a flattering 4-0 late win against a weak 10 men Cyprus team isn't enough for me to give Bento a pass on what has transpired.
Only Ronaldo and Fabio C played well. The midfield totally useless and NANI was awful, always gave up possession. Has this team improved since BENTO has taken over ? Cyprus almost tied this game !
I mean Moutinho is our best midfielder, but he's just good not great. Meireles is decent, his best quality is that he's hardworking meaning he get the result done defensively but when it comes to passing and creating chances... well he's worse than Moutinho.
Micael, he's not better nor worse than Carlos Martins and that's not a compliment.
Veloso was even worse.
At some point during the match we were relying on our CBs to pass the ball to our forward players (English style football) you know you have a midfield problem when that happens!
The only midfielder we haven't tried yet in the midfield position is Danny and that's never going to happen for some odd reason.
And yes Voice, here comes SupremeIdiot with his comments again. I think this will be his next target for a while now, this Carvalho incident. Hes fixated his mind to hate Bento now and he wont stop, and trust he will bring out the Carvalho thing plenty of times. His stupid azz doesn't know how to appreciate anything good in our Seleccao and feeds off the mistakes of others to compensate for his lack of a life, very much the same for others on here.
I liked Ronaldo reactions cause it shut up those Cyprus chants of Messi, complete disrespect. They are just mad they don't have the best individual player in the world( I say individual because we all know what would happen if Messi left Barcelona...) And that their disgrace of a national team can barely keep up with him. I liked his reactions. Of course Gino over here has to bring in Carvalho of course. "The real captain" Get the hell outta here. Hes gone, stop crying, get your hands out of your pants, and move on.
People tend to pick sides? The only one whose picking sides here is you. Constantly bashing on Bento without knowing anything. Without providing no facts or evidence. Its just baseless opinion, therefore your picking sides. Hypocritical piece of S|-|!T.
And yea Voice hes definitely Italian. It says it all in his name.But don't worry to much, I still believe hes just a little kid, with a big ego to call himself " SupremoGino". Last time I heard those nicknames were in high school.Hes a kid. His lack of knowledge suggests that.
There are not many teems out there went to Cyprus and came with 4 -0 victories in resent history.so don't search for invincible negative point.Our teem did really well.
sorry for the bad english
The first 80 minutes of this game were some of the worst football ever played by Portugal. And Portugal was lucky that the linesman made that offside call incorrectly, otherwise Portugal may have been faced with a 1-1 draw and every Cypriot back in defence for the remainder of the game.
I totally agree with "ONSENTARIO," there is very little creativity in the midfield. Did anyone notice that it took Nani and Ronaldo in the middle to create that second goal. It's too bad Rui Costa isn't twenty anymore.
I'm glad people are not going nuts at how dominant we were.
Lets not forget that we played 55 minutes with a man up.
Even with that advantage the midfield looked lacking.
I admit, I really don't know how to fix it.
As long as our National managers continue to put Danny out wide, we'll never know what he can accomplish as our #10.
Veloso? Really? Is he going to get dropped now, like Nuno was?
Please don't bring Martins back.
We had no business drawing with Cyprus in the first match, and I believe we could have done better today.
The important thing is to advance, and that's all that matters.
Like I said, big win.
It was a frustrating game to watch at times but any team who plays as negatively as they did are hard to score on. Ronaldo was outstanding and I'm pretty sure I don't understand why some people are calling him out for gesturing to the Cypriot fans, who taunted him the entire game. He took both of his goals well and created the third and generally played well so I don't know why fans have to make up reasons to point out why he shouldn't be captain. I think he's beginning to demonstrate that he's the right man for the job.
Anyways, back to the game. I do wish we could finish better. We created a lot of chances in this game and once again had to wait until the very end to finally put the opposition away. Postiga worked hard again but didn't get into the best positions to score. Almeida, on the other hand, did well to find space at the end of the game and easily bagged a goal courtesy of Ronaldo.
The defense was untested but managed rather well except for when they let Okkas through on goal. He was well onside and we were really fortunate because at that moment we were only up 1-0 and that could've changed the entire complexion of the game.
All things considered, we deserved to win and our goal differential is continuing to grow. If Norway and Denmark can draw against one another, it will put us in a great position to win the group if we can just beat Iceland and win or draw against Denmark. We have every chance to make that happen.
Forca Portugal.
FORCA PORTUGAL FORCA!!!!
Teams like Cyprus - playing everyone behind the ball - always gives us trouble, so I am happy that the capitalized to increase their goal differential.
Ronaldo's game was fantastic today - dishing off to Almeida rather than going for the hat-trick shows that he is maturing as the captain of this team. The one two with Nani was something he may not have done a few years ago - the dish to Nani shows trust and faith in his teammates...he dished and went to open space trusting he would get it back. Brilliant.
Leave it up to Gino to bring up Carvalho/Bento in a game recap thread.
Gino writes -
I know the real captain Carvalho would have never done such a thing. He still hasnt fully addressed the situation because he has class unlike the mental case who coaches our national team. People tend to pick sides before hearing the whole story.
Classic Gino - again "People tend to pick sides before hearing the whole story"
Right after he calls Bento a mental case - but I'm sure Gino isn't picking sides...every single post this guy makes - he must be Italian.
It was the C.Ronaldo show and I think he played quite well.. he brings alot to the team and deserves more credit. I didnt expect Cyprus fans to be booing him and cheering "Messi" the whole time but the scoreline serves them right. Karmas a !3itch.
I'll admit I was proud when CR made those gestures after the 2nd goal.. hell I'd do the exact same but thats just me. However, as the captain of our national team.. he could've showed himself as the bigger man.
I know the real captain Carvalho would have never done such a thing. He still hasnt fully addressed the situation because he has class unlike the mental case who coaches our national team. People tend to pick sides before hearing the whole story.
Anyway. Finally Danny does something worth mentioning for the nt.
One step closer to Euro 2012..
Forca Portugal
Danny! Why does Danny always play on the wing for Portugal, he always plays in a centre attacking mid role for Zenit, and I think thats the postion he should be playing! We lacked abit of creativety in midfield today, Moutinho is classy midfielder, but having Danny playing a Deco like role would be great for Portugal, cause he has vision and great playmaking atributes to this!
Ruben Micael is horrible and has done absolutely nothing to merit as place on the team, how much football has he played the last year? I'm glad that Martins is out the picture too. I think we need to play Meireles further up the field and let Santos or Veloso (or hopefully Danillo in the future) play trinco. Also what does Danny have to do to not get stuck on the wing and have a chance more central?
Patricio, Pepe, and Alves had very little to do throughout the match. Pereira and Coentrao had very little to defensively so they were always helping out up front.
Meireles, again, had a solid game as the holding midfielder, but his passing was sloppy at times. Ruben Micael helped keep possession of the ball, but really didn't do much else. Joao Moutinho had a very good game in my opinion. As always, he worked extremely hard without the ball, and he made intelligent passes throughout the match.
Helder Postiga worked hard and linked up well with Ronaldo, but really didn't see too much of the ball in dangerous places. Nani looked very dangerous on the wings, but his crosses weren't always great. My man of the match, Cristiano Ronaldo caused the Cypriot defense all sorts of problems throughout the match. He took his goals well and he assisted Almeida's goal.
The one thing that bothered me about this match was our lack of an attacking playmaker. Moutinho and Micael were given the freedom to create, but neither of them are natural #10's. Moutinho would often drop very deep to dictate play leaving Micael in the hole. Micael is a decent player, but he isn't talented enough to excel in that position.
This 4-3-3 works well against good teams and teams that want to attack, but when we are playing a stubborn defense, it is best to use a 4-2-3-1. We do have one player who could work wonders as the attacking midfielder and that is Danny. However, as you all know, Bento, for some reason, only uses him as a winger. Danny's skill and quickness behind the center forward would cause teams all sorts of problems, so I hope Bento will give it a try.
2nd half at times we reallly looked slow and Cyprus had almost took advantage of that on their thru ball which was incorrect but luckily offside. Then after hearing chants of Messi for most of game Ronaldo decides to make Cyprus fans eat it with that 2nd goal, and then gets assist for Almeida. Overall very happy to have won 4-0 though we cant let our foot off the pedal especially when opposite team is down a man.
With all thats happened with Carvalho over the week Seleccao could of let that get to the team, but got the result needed, very nice performance from Ronaldo, pepe, Coentrao were their great play, Nani created difficulties.
Lets win our home finale against Iceland and then clinch this thing in Copenhagen.
Melhor pé em frente o resto do caminho. Forca Portugal
With that being said, there was no way we could afford to lose or even tie this match and the Selecção performed admirably. I'm very happy about the result, and I was extremely happy to see some players doing well throughout the entire game.
Moutinho, what can you say about the man? Absolute class midfielder.
Ronaldo, finally manages to produce his club-form for his country. Also, very unselfish of him to give that 3rd goal to Almeida instead of going for the hat-trick.
Nani, always, always a threat. And his defensive capabilities have improved (most likely due to SAF)
Coentrao, my favourite player on the team. A big threat going forward and a solid defender at the back. Unlucky with his shot hitting the post.
I'm not going to give my opinion on every player's performance but I have to mention Danny in particular. I'll admit, I was never familiar with his playing style (do not follow the Russian league) but I was always disappointed whenever he came on the field for Portugal. Fortunately, today the man proved me wrong. He was on the field for 5-7 minutes and managed to score a beautiful goal. Not only did he score but I was impressed by his positional sense, vision and ball control. All this in about 5 minutes is pretty impressive. I think that if Bento decides to play him down the middle as an attacking center midfield man (much like Deco) then we have a another viable attacking option.
Overall, great game and still crossing my fingers for Euro 2012.
The start was slow, but towards the end of the game they really found their stride. It is very obvious that practicing together at R.Madrid has really help cement the understanding between CR, Fabio C. and Pepe. The backline looked good (not that they were too troubled) but I think this was a good first came to get used to not having Ricardo Carvalho, since Cyprus couldn't put anything too potent together (aside from a few counterattacks).
Hopefully the Seleccao stays in a strong mental state, since at this point their Euro2012 future is firmly in their hands.
Bravo Seleccao!!!