Portugal 2 – 0 Turkey: Match Recap

Okay, the match took place on Saturday. It’s Monday. Something tells me that this recap is going to feel pretty fucking late, but hey, I’ll do my best to make up for the delay with some intelligent, in-depth stuff. Also, my weekend was thoroughly, unexpectedly hectic. You can come to expect match recaps to be readily available, at worst, the morning after. Enough explaining away, here’s what I saw:

Portugal lined up exactly how I figured they would:

Cristiano Ronaldo – Nuno Gomes – Simão
Deco – João Moutinho – Petit
Paulo Ferreira – Ricardo Carvalho – Pepe – Bosingwa
Ricardo

First Half Analysis / Notes
However, after the ball was kicked off, the formation never looked the same. Portugal were confident enough from the get-go to commit massive amounts of players forward, pressing Turkey as thoroughly as possible at the outset. This gave me a great deal of pride and reassured me that the team were committed to imposing their will on the match rather than let Turkey try and dictate the tempo. Portugal reminded me a great deal of what we’re used to seeing out of a Brazilian side: completely attack minded football but with one difference: players all willing to rotate back and cover when midfielders and defenders went forward.

Right “back” Jose Bosingwa was making 30-40 yard runs at a time, flying down the wing to try and provide further attacking support and allow more players to get into positions of receiving a cross or a ball on the ground toward the middle. I wasn’t crazy about his service at times, but when he had to, he made sure to hustle his ass back and cover for any loss of possession forward. When he couldn’t, Petit was more than happy to slide over into his spot and put out any fires before they became an inferno.

After a while, as I mentioned, the rigid starting formation turned into something that looked more like this:

Nuno Gomes
Simão – Cristiano Ronaldo
Deco
João Moutinho – Bosingwa
Pepe – Petit
Paulo Ferreira – Ricardo Carvalho
Ricardo

I felt as though Petit would slide back into Bosingwa’s role a great deal and cover for Pepe when the Brazilian wanted to go forward and try his luck. Petit actually was less of a holding/defensive mid and more of a replacement for whichever defensive player decided it was his turn to try and support the forwards. He did a superb job in this role.

The first half was full of chances but Pepe’s converted header on the cross was (correctly) called back for offside and while we enjoyed a great deal of possession in the Turkish part of the pitch, they were more than happy to lay back and let us come at them. Deco had a few amazing balls across the field and showed fantastic vision for finding the open man (Ronaldo on a number of occasions) but unfortunately nothing much was made of the movement forward.

My man of the match for at least the first half of the game was Jose Bosingwa for his marauding runs forward and his ability to track back effectively to cover his position.

Before I glean over it and forget to mention this, I felt that the team showed a fuck load of maturity and fantastic workmanship by filling in where needed. I saw Simão and even Crissy for that matter coming back a decent ways to cover for players going forward. I was impressed and even surprised by this, as often times our players are criticized for running in a single direction for 90 minutes.

Intermission changes / Thoughts
I found Cristiano to be relatively ineffective. The Turks were fouling him and not letting him get on a real run to draw the defenders and open up space for other attackers. When they weren’t fouling him, they were covering him with three defenders, surrounding him in a triforce that would have made Zelda and Link blush. My friends and I discussed the potential tactics for opening up a player like Ronaldo to make more incising runs and came to the conclusion that it would probably be most prudent to try and give Quaresma a run out on the opposite side of the field. If the midfield were to feed Quaresma the ball and he could start slicing and dicing forward Harry Potter magician style to put a menacing shot on, maybe it would cause the defenders to pay more attention to him and draw a bit of the smothering coverage away from Ronnie. There were clearly no defensive concerns of note, as I’m willing to bet eight out of ten of the Turkish outfield players couldn’t even tell you the color of Ricardo’s shirt after the first half.

Second Half Analysis / Notes
Confident that his strategy would eventually yield the desired result, Scolari ran out the same eleven he started with. After a first half with effective cross field passing and some intelligent balls forward, Deco lost any steam he had and became borderline worthless. Almost every ball played into him was turned into an overly ambitious cross or a weak short pass that was intercepted. Nuno Gomes who was actually on the pitch from the start of the match (I know, hard to tell), began becoming a part of the offense and actually had a few nice chances, hitting the crossbar on a ground shot as well as with his head.

After continuing to dominate, in the sixty-first minute Pepe would take the ball from just inside the Turkish half, dribble and lay it off to Nuno Gomes who smartly played a fantastic give-and-go back to the lanky center back to pop home over the keeper as he was being pursued from behind. Pepe’s run which started essentially from midfield seemed to have caught the Turks (and even some of his fellow teammates) by surprise as they almost parted like the Red Sea, waiting for Pepe to dish the ball off to one of tthe more attack-minded players. This mistake proved costly and allowed Portugal to go up 1 – 0.

A few minutes later, around the 69th or 70th minute, Nani came on for Nuno Gomes and the formation seemed to change with an experimentation of Cristiano playing more of a lone striker role and Nani moving to the wing spot previously occupied by C-Ronzilla. Further on, in an attempt to try a completely different approach and a more rigid formation, Raul Meireles came on for Simão and Portugal then went from a more “Brazilian” organic type of line up to what appeared to be a 4-1-2-1-2 with the diamond in the midfield. When Meireles came on, the team looked more like this:

Cristiano Ronaldo – Nani
Deco
João Moutinho – Raul Meireles
Petit
Paulo Ferreira – Ricardo Carvalho – Pepe – Bosingwa
Ricardo

For me, this conservative formation BLEW. The Turks seemed more comfortable facing a conventional line up like this and were actually able to penetrate forward a bit deeper into the Portugal zone, creating one or two genuine late chances inside the area, one of which Pepe had to sprint back and save their asses on. After Scolari finally conceded that Deco had no more gas in the tank, he brought on Fernando Meira to serve as extra protection in the back next to / in tandem with Petit to shut the door on the Turks.

The next action of note was a horrific spikes up karate kick red card-deserving tackle on Nani which actually yielded cleat marks that broke skin. Inexplicably, the referee actually had the audacity to put his hands in a rounded, spherical motion to make the the universal referee signal that the tackler went for and got the ball, thus Turkey began pressing forward once more. However, the new found Turkish confidence led to them committing one too many players forward and Portugal caught them on the break, with Ronaldo flying down the side to find Moutinho in the middle who would lay it off to Raul Meireles for an injury time strike to put the final nail in the coffin and have Portugal take their much deserved place at the top of Group A.

Individual Player Rankings:

Goalkeeper:
Ricardo: 7.75 – He didn’t see too much action but he definitely instilled a whole hell of a lot of confidence in me going forward. He was aggressive with crosses and was willing to come off his line to keep the Turks from even thinking about sniffing the goal. He reminded me of why he’s our number one and any doubts I had about him coming in have been quelled for now.

Defenders / Wingbacks / Attacking Centerbacks:
Paulo Ferreira: 7.5 – A workmanlike effort, provided competent support for everyone else in the back line going forward. I’d be a little concerned with him defending a larger striker / winger later on in the tournament as he can tend to get a little manhandled at times given his size. Didn’t go forward as much as I’m accustomed to, but he didn’t have to, everyone else was.

Ricardo Carvalho: 8 - Played almost essentially a lone center back position at times. Covered Pepe’s runs forward extremely well and worked to quell any counter attacks by giving definitive support to Petit when running back in coverage. One or two attacking runs didn’t produce too much but kept the Turks honest.

Pepe: 9 - Man of the Match – Up until his crazy runs forward and his ability to track back so well in defense, I was considering Bosingwa for MotM. However, he showed his Brazilian blood rather well in the 1-2 with Nuno Gomes and got a much deserved goal out of his hard work. His aforementioned tracking back and slide tackling the ball away near his own goal showed that he was willing to leave it all on the field for the win.

Jose Bosingwa: 8.5 - Facilitated a number of attacking runs down the wing extremely well and did his job in getting back. He had an endless motor and while he probably doesn’t have the technical ability to get past the last defender, he showed that he can act as a direct feeder of the ball from the back lines up to the front. The number of penetrations forward early gave him a bit too much confidence once in a while and he should have probably been looking inside more often when the score was still 0-0. Exciting match nonetheless.

Midfielders
Petit: 7.5 - He did not play poorly whatsoever. I tipped him to be an important part of this match, but Turkey’s counterattack really didn’t allow him to shine in the trinco role that’s made him a national team stalwart over the years. He essentially rotated back into whatever defensive position was making a run forward at the time to facilitate the attack from that perspective and did an excellent job in holding up whatever runs forward Turkey could put together in order to allow the defense to regroup. He seemed a bit winded towards the end of the match.

Deco: 7 - In the first half, he was largely an 8-8.5. He was hitting Ronaldo and a number of other forwards with balls from 20-30 yards away. He was sliding passes in well and moving into space well. In the second half he looked thoroughly tired. He didn’t have enough zip on his passes and he had a few taken away on seemingly innocuous challenges. His performance leads me to believe he may be a 45-60 minute MAX player right now while he works to get back into match fitness.

João Moutinho: 8.25 - Somewhat a ghost for spells but when his number was called, he provided intelligent service and forward attack. He worked well in tandem at times with Petit and also with Deco. It seemed that he simply boosted whatever needs either of his other two midfielders required. Played well above his age and experience level. Will be a fantastic replacement for Deco in the years to come.

Attack
Cristiano Ronaldo: 7.75 - Ronaldo’s always going to get a scrutinizing grade as so much is expected of him. He put a great free kick on goal and didn’t pout or fight when Simão insisted on taking the first real spot kick chance of the game. Showed good poise and maturity as well as ::GASP:: a desire to come back and play defending football. Had a lot of marking on him and will need to trust his teammates a bit more before he can make the most of his blinding runs. I think he’s poised and ready to have a great tournament.

Nuno Gomes: 7 - I forgot he was on the field for the majority of the time until he hit the cross bar twice and slotted to Pepe for the first goal. He’s not in the admirable position of essentially playing alone up front but I think he needs to be a sub to come on during a lead and quell any confusion or frustration up front. He can’t be the first choice striker at this point.

Simão: 7.75 - Had some nice runs and showed, like much of the team, a willingness to come back and help out on defense. His spot kick was agonizingly close but I think his service on corners had me wanting Deco taking more of them. We need to take better advantage of our aerial presence on corners and the Pepe offside goal aside, we didn’t. With the amount of attacking prowess we showed in runs forward, we can expect to be taking a lot of these.

Substitutes:
Nani: 7.25 - Came on for Nuno Gomes in the 69th minute. Essentially swapped positions with Ronaldo and led Crissy to be used as a lone striker. Had a few nice passes and some creative runs forward but didn’t show the same willingness to track back that a number of other midfielders / wingers were showing. Appears to be the first choice sub on the wings right now, ahead of my beloved Ricardo Quaresma. The foul he took was an abomination.

Raul Meireles: 8 - Came on for Simão in the 83rd minute. Proved the “fresh legs” theory of why you sub players in late in the match. Once he came in, the team seemed slightly more vulnerable to a Turkish build up but that wasn’t so much his fault as it was more down to a few other tired legs and Turkey’s formation seeming to match up better with the newly employed Portuguese system. Since he came in relatively late, his ability to influence the game wasn’t all that noticeable. He handled himself well and seemed like he wasn’t out of his league when he was on the ball. His awareness to get forward and slot home the 93rd minute goal on a pass from Moutinho put him on the map. Awesome sleeve by the way. (as pointed out by commenter Andrew)

Fernando Meira: Incomplete – Came on for Deco in the 92nd minute. More a time wasting, defense shoring up subsitute. He didn’t have much time on the ball if any and was basically brought in for further defensive support after Turkey looked like threatening a few times.

Conclusion:
Overall I have to say that the team surprised the hell out of me. They played mature, effective attacking football and showed a desire to cover all aspects of their given responsibilities on the pitch. The true test of this somewhat Brazilian-style, organic attacking football will come Wednesday against the Czech Republic who didn’t do much to impress in a 1-0 win over the hosts Switzerland earlier in the day. After seeing how Portugal performed combined with the ho-hum performances of the other teams in their group, any fear I had of the other teams has now subsided quite a bit and I think we definitively have the talent and desire to take this tournament and make a real run at it.

Força Portugal!!!!