After two very timely appearances for the NT against Hungary and Malta, Pedro Mendes suffered a knee injury during Glasgow Ranger’s last Champions League match. He will be out for the next 2 months, missing the play-offs against Bosnia-Herzegovina. A huge blow as Pedro seemed the ideal candidate for the defensive midfield position found in [...]

Bosnia Herzegovina is Portugal’s adversary for the WC2010 Play-offs. This is going to be a tough one but I have the utmost confidence in our team!
The first match will take place on the 14th of November at the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon. 4 Days later we face them on their turf. I would have [...]

FIFA has released an updated ranking and what do you know… Portugal closes the top 10.
In fact we were the country that scored the most points in this update: 162. Moving up 7 places we finished in the top 10.
This particular ranking has a bit more meaning because it determines the top 4 seed for [...]

Four nil. Another one bites the dust.
Next stop: play-offs.
Led by an amazing crowd eager to sing and dance the team through this match, Portugal delivered. Delivered in goals. Delivered in spirit. From the get go we tightened a net around Malta and didn’t ease up until the first 2 were in. I had hoped for [...]

October, 14, 2009
Estadio D.Afonso Henriques, Guimarães, Portugal
19:45 Lisbon, London; 14:45 New York

Real Madrid just confirmed Ronaldo will be out injured for the next 4 weeks healing his ankle injury.
The horrible tackle by Olympique Marseille’s Diawara during the CL game forced Ronaldo to miss Real Madrid’s game against Sevilla. Real Madrid lost and a lot was written and said about RM’s dependency on CR9. Supposedly recovered for [...]

Man-of-the-Match:
Simão (8): And at the 9th game there was light. Beauty in motion. Pace and skill. The crowd stood up and cheered. Simão’s critics, myself included, were all screaming for Nani to take his place. He knew he had to shut everyone’s cake-holes. Apparently he had it in him to easily accomplish such task. And [...]

There you have it: Portugal is back on track to play the World Cup. The team played some gutsy soccer, at times slow at times fast and beautiful, more of the later… finally. The goals showed up and with them my most unexpected surprise: Simão. Thank you for proving me wrong boy. Loved it!

October, 10, 2009
Estadio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal
20:45 Lisbon, London; 15:45 New York

Done. 3 Points. On to the next.
The best thing that can be said about this game is “we won” everything else was looked at in utter disbelief.
I must be completely oblivious to what exactly Hungary needed to keep alive any hope of qualifying for this worldcup because it looked like they couldn’t care less about [...]