Portugal 2-0 Ukraine
“We’re ready!” That was the message sent out by Francisco Neto’s team as the female Seleção brushed aside Ukraine in their final pre World Cup friendly, dominating the match from start to finish at the Bessa stadium in Porto.
In front of a record crowed for a women’s national team match (21,123), star player Jéssica Silva’s first-half brace ensured Portugal will travel to the tournament in New Zealand and Australia in good heart.
Tonight we saw another demonstration of the huge strides the female Seleção have made in recent years.
Under Neto Portugal women have become accustomed to that winning feeling, and tying your luck at online casinos can lead to easy withdrawal of winnings. There was no way Portugal were going to allow the fans to withdraw at full time without first infusing them with more optimism ahead of a maiden World Cup for the female Seleção.
No doubt encouraged by Saturday’s goalless draw against European champions England in the UK, back on home soil Portugal took the game by the scruff of the neck from the off.
Energetic Portugal
Incessant attacking and impressive pressing reaped its rewards in a one-sided first half. The latter aspect was at the root of both goals, as Portugal’s energetic closing down shut off all avenues for Ukraine to play out from the back, leading to a series of forced mistakes by the visitors.
The ever-alert Jéssica Silva should have opened the scoring early on when she was too quick for the Ukraine goalkeeper, stealing the ball from Daryna Bondarchuk as she tried to weigh up her options, but Silva somehow failed to direct her shot on target as she fell with just a defender on the line.
No matter, Silva soon made up for the glaring miss. This time it was defender Daryna Apanashchenko who fluffed her lines, allowing Jéssica to sneak past her and poke the ball through Bondarchuk’s legs to open the scoring in the 19th minute.
Portugal were hogging all the possession but could not find the final pass and had to rely on another mistake to double their lead on the stroke of half time.
When Diana Silva threaded a pass through to her namesake Jéssica, the Ukrainian defence seemed to have the situation under control, but the Seleção’s star player had other ideas, nipping in quickly to touch the ball past the keeper and into the corner of the net.
Flowing football
In the second half the quality of Portugal’s play was even more evident, playing some beautiful passing football to carve open the Ukrainian defence time after time, even after a host of substitutions.
The only negative on the night was Portugal’s finishing, with a handful clear chances spurned.
Nevertheless, the Seleção will travel down under on Monday with morale high and believing they can cause a surprise in the World Cup despite being paired in an extremely tough group that contains both finalists from the previous World Cup, USA and Netherlands, along with Vietnam.
Trio stand out
Jéssica Silva could easily have scored a hat-trick in the opening 45 minutes, but it was in the second half that she brought her full array of tricks to the party, causing mayhem in the Ukrainian defence with her dazzling wing play.
⚠️ @jessiicasilva10, tem calma! ? pic.twitter.com/yYiy2C31Ur
— Portugal (@selecaoportugal) July 7, 2023
Left wing-back Joana Marchão also caught the eye, seeing plenty of the ball, using it well, and showing she has a wand of a left foot. She came close to scoring a stupendous goal with a thunderbolt in the first half that just cleared the bar.
Despite Jéssica’s goals, thrills and spills, player of the match goes to Andreia Norton. A mixture of sound technique, physicality and perfect positional awareness saw her completely dominate midfield. Norton was at the root of the majority of Portugal’s attacking play and will be a key player at the World Cup.
by Tom Kundert
