Portugal 2-1 Serbia
The upturn in fortunes for the Seleção since Fernando Santos became head coach continues apace.
Goals from Ricardo Carvalho and Fábio Coentrão in each half gave Portugal a vital 2-1 victory over Serbia in Lisbon tonight. Nemanja Matic scored a superb equaliser for the visitors and briefly threatened to spoil the night of 60,000 Portuguese fans inside the Estádio da Luz, upon his return to his former club's home ground.
But Coentrão's winner soon afterwards sent the Seleção to the top of qualifying Group I at the halfway stage.
A beautiful sunny evening met the two teams as Portugal came out for Ilidio Vale's big night out. Portugal, having begun the qualifying trail by falling over Albania, are now back on track after narrow victories over both Denmark away and at home to Armenia. With Denmark not playing until June, here was the ideal chance to hit the top of the group.
With a distinctly Fernando Santos look about the side and the results so far (1-0, 1-0 etc etc) under the veteran coach, more of the same was expected.
With a lusty round of Parabéns for Rui Costa's birthday, thoughts were that only the big welly from Nemanja Matic could possibly spoil the atmosphere. How right we nearly were.
Santos goes old school
Santos has gone back to the old school to bring a trusted look to the Portugal back four, starting on this occasion with José Bosingwa on the right, Ricardo Carvalho alongside Bruno Alves (in for the injured Pepe) in the middle and Benfica's Eliseu on the left. The midfield lined up with Tiago - in such good from for Atlético - flanked by Fábio Coentrão and João Moutinho. A nominal front three of Danny, Nani and Ronnie reduced some of us to near poetry, at least of the cheap, unfunny limerick variety.
With a vibrant atmosphere at the start being produced by the near capacity Luz crowd of 58,400 (and not the twelve Serbs who had managed to get in), it took only three minutes for Cristiano Ronalso to have his first pot shot at Stoijkovic's goal.
Nani forced the first corner after 5 minutes with a deep cross to the far post that was headed out of play by Dusan Basta. From the kick Serbia broke upfield and allowed José Bosingwa to show his remaining pace was good enough to close down Tadic on the break.
Early strike
A great series of passes in the 9th minute led to Coentrao chasing down Basta on his way back to his own goal and forcing the game's second corner, as the meaty left back took the safe option with the keeper too close in front of him for comfort. From a short one, the experienced head of Ricardo Carvalho met Coentrão's curling cross and smacked it past Stoijkovic for a fine opener.
Regrettably this early breakthrough caused the first Mexican wave of the evening.
With the crowd suitably employed standing up and sitting down with their arms flailing, Aleksander Kolarov exercised himself with three decent runs down the left, one in particular causing some discomfort in the box.
Scorer Carvalho was forced after only 16 minutes, to be replaced by Southampton's José Fonte, a suitable reward for the defender's fantastic season in the Premier League. It was not clear what had happened to the Monaco man and Fernando Santos didn't know either when asked in the press conferece later. Obviously no communication to him then.
Portugal, playing a typically tight Fernando Santos 4-3-3, continued in comfortable control but without the cutting edge needed further up the field to get in behind the Serbians' defence, well marshalled by Ivanovic and Nastasic. Both Ivanovic and Kolarov continued to press at the other end too, the left-back raiding dangerously down the flank and his captain getting in a header from an isolated corner.
Ronaldo was the target of the game's first yellow card tackle, delivered swiftly by Nemanja Matic on his return to his old stamping ground.
Some uncertainty arose in the home defence, caused by Tadic's cross in the 26th minute with a corner needlessly given away. Portugal were guilty of decelerating a little as the half wore on. With Ljajic coming into the game more and more there was a let off after 27 minutes, when Kolarov's ball inside found the Roma man in space and he screwed a left footer comfortbaly wide.
Ronaldo roams
Cristiano Ronaldo's second pot shot at goal soon after produced a flying save from Stoijkovic as the ball rocketed towards the top corner of the Serb's goal. When he again danced through the left side of the Serbia defence, he was blocked at the very last moment. With Cristiano appearing in the middle as well as on the left, the Serbian defence were having a torrid time trying to track him.
Tiago, holding central midfield comfortably despite the presence of Matic, shot wide after 38 minutes and, inspired by his midfield partner, João Moutinho cut cleverly inside a minute later and blasted his shot over the bar.
Half time brought an end to a short period of Serbian possession in the middle of the park, where little danger had come from the talented Markovic and Ljajic, both well shackled by Eliseu, Alves and Fonte down the left hand side.
With a sloppy, slow-paced start to the second period, the Serbs were given some encourgaement that there might be something in it for them and Mitrovic headed narrowly over from Tadic's precise left wing cross on 53 minutes. It had taken this long for the 2nd half to get going.
Matic screamer
With the Serbs controlling vast amounts of possession in the first fifteeen minutes of the second half, the home support began to concentrate less on the Mexican Wave and more on the troubles down on the pitch. These duly grew more pertinent in the 61st minute when Nemanja Matic flew into the air to produce a left foot scissors kick that flew past Rui Patrício to make it one-one. It was a truly breathtaking piece of skill by the big midfielder.
All of Matic's skill was turned to dust two minutes later when Moutinho's great ball acros the box found Fábio Coentrão at the far post and he slid it past Stoijkovic to reopen the home side's one goal lead.
As the Serbs came into it more and more, Matic again had a piledriver saved by Patricio. Coentrao received a standing ovation for a great night's work when replaced by Ricardo Quaresma after 78 minutes. 58,430 in the ground were unanimous in their warm praise of the left midfielder's night's work.
With those famously short Serb tempers becoming frayed, Tosic was booked for chopping down the increasingly influential Moutinho. Portugal saw out the match pushing the away side back, with the imperious Tiago running the excellent Fábio Coentrão close for man of the match honours.
The win duly came, slotting Portugal nicely into top place in the group with a break now until mid-June, when hostilities resart.
SANTOS HAILS WIN BUILT ON WORKRATE NOT REPUTATION
Manager Fernando Santos, wearing his trademark grimace, hailed his side's phenomenal workrate in the 2-1 win.
"My side showed a lot of maturity, a lot of experience," he maintained, "It is not, however, age or identity that plays the most important role in our squad but the willingness to work hard for the results we want."
When pressed about the "hyper-experienced" side he had chosen for the match, Santos continued, "This is a squad of players, which is prepared to work hard to satisfy its goals. We have now, with the wins over Denmark and Armenia in qualifying and against Argentina in the last friendly, begun to build up a good winning rythmn . It is our job now to keep this run going."
Asked about a moment of communication between Cristiano Ronaldo and a bench he was banned from being a part of, Santos suggested that it was nothing more than normal strategic planning between the player and the manager's assistant Ilídio Vale for the last part of the game and nothing whatsoever to do with him trying to have any influence.
As if to underline the utter and complete lack of contact he had enjoyed with the bench, he also professed to knowing absolutely nothing about the extent of the injury picked up early in the game by scorer Ricardo Carvalho.
Underlining the point that his side had been put out to attack, he said "Our strategy got us what we wanted, We could have entered the game with a shape that took the opposition more into consideration, but we wanted to play with Fábio Coentrão more advanced on the left hand side to make things work for us."
by Simon Curtis, at the Estádio da Luz
Portugal: Rui Patrício, Bosingwa, Ricardo Carvalho (José Fonte, 17’), Bruno Alves, Eliseu, Tiago, Moutinho, Danny (William Carvalho, 85’), Coentrão (Quaresma, 78’), Ronaldo, Nani
Serbia: Stojkovic, Basta, Ivanovic, Nastasic, Kolarov, Petrovic, Matic, Markovic, Tadic (Tosic, 80’), Ljajic (Skuletic, 85’), Mitrovic
Goals:
[1-0] Ricardo Carvalho, 11'
[1-1] Matic, 61'
[2-1] Coentrão, 63'
