Problems at the goal

Has Moretto received his citizenship yet?.Anyone know?..’Couse he would be a good first goalie. A little unreliable, but a hundred times better than ‘peru’ Ricardo.

As long as I know, Moretto still Brazilian.

Moretto only jumped in for Benfica very recently. One could say he played some 2 or 3 games before the matches against Barcelona.

Quim is good, Moreira is good (arguably could be even better than the others) and Ricardo is not bad. Remember Taffarel…? Well, I say that Ricardo is surelly better than him. And Taffarel won the cup in 94.

Portugal is not typically “goalie-defficient”. That’s with the strikers, not the goalies… We had so many good ones. Bento, Damas, Silvino, Baia (yeah he’s an “ex”), etc…

Soze, Portugal is not going to start giving passports to brazilian players, or from any other ex-colony, just to fill the gaps of the NT. Much, much before Deco, this talk was going on for years… And, surprise surprise, what a lot of people really wanted, some time ago, were actually strikers. Did it happen?

Posted from  Netherlands

Very true, but reports in Portuguese papers stated that Morettos papers are being hurried along. Not on the request of Scolari, but Moretto. I am guessing that he is hoping to get the call up on the strength of his recent gameplay…

Sorry Pedro, but Ricardo is not better than Taffarel. MAYBE and just maybe, Ricardo is NOW better then Taffarel was before the 94 World Cup.

Through 88 to 92, Taffarel was one of the best goalies in the World. I still remembers his savings on the olympics(Seul 88). That’s the reason why Parma decided to play with him even them back there you could only play with 3 non-italian. No other team would put a goalie as one of it’s 3.

In 92 he lost his position as Parma’s starter and wen’t to the World Cup lacking practice. He did well although. He came back to Brazil were he kept his good work and did better in France98.

I was counting on some reactions…

My point is this: we can all put the guy on the cross because he isn’t one of the 10 best goalies in the world. But the fact that he isn’t “a star” doesn’t mean he isn’t good enough. Why are we so angry at him? Because he isn’t as good as we’d like? Should we be? Does it mean that he is bad? No. I say he’s good. He’s not brilliant. But sometimes it’s better to have somebody not brilliant, but able to do the job. Better than having somebody brilliant who only performs 50% of the time…

Taffarel was one of the best…? I only know him from 94. He wasn’t bad. But was he THAT GOOD? C’mon…

Baia was not one of the best in 95, 96, 97. He was actually, for several coaches who publically said so (like Sir Bobby Robson), one of THE top 3 goalies in the world. To that date, he was the most expensive goalkeeper ever sold (FC Porto to Barca). STILL, in spite of all this brilliance, in 96 against the Czechs, both teams playing lousy, Baia caused our defeat due to being – AGAIN – out of place. How silly is this type of mistakes? Poborsky got the ball, made a high one and POR was history.

Just to finish on this issue of how important is to be brilliant, I recall WC94… POR was kicked out in the qualifies, in a terrible match against Italy, also in Italy. One of the last matches. I think a draw would suit us, but I’m not sure. We lost 1-0. The italians struggled to win. Most of the time they were in our legs, stopping every possible play. And then look… They went to the final and gave a lot of hard work to a much better Brazil. Individually, Portugal has had some (and only some) of the best the world has seen. But not as a strong, experienced team – don’t tell me that THAT italian team was anywhere near Portugal, on pure brilliance. And in a team, it’s guys like Petit – who run and don’t sweat and don’t give up – that make the difference.

There…

Posted from  Netherlands

Pedro, as I told you, Taffarel was great between 88 to 92. And in 94 he was in the worst moment of his career. Many Brazilians wish to see Zetti as our #1. In 98 again, Carlos Germano was our best goalie but again, Taffarel had the experience of 2 WC and 1 Olympicsm, so he was the starter again.

Anyway, this is not my point here. My point is to show that Portugal has some problems in developing new goalkeepers. I’m not saying bad thing about Ricardo, I believe he will do the job just fine. However, it’s a problem when your 2nd best goalie is not even the first replacement on his team. There are some good goalies in Portugal and I really believe Bruno Vale has the potential to develop as a great goalie but if this situation doesn’t change, the problem will only grow bigger.

I don’t know what should be the solution. May it’s the goalie’s coaches. I don’t know, but Portugal develops so many great player, why they are developing so few great goalies?

That’s an excellent question Luis Paulo and one that deserves far greater scrutiny on the part of FPF. This is a question that should have been addressed already. That’s why we’re all so uncomfortable with the current situation at goalie. The reality is that since EC04, we’re no better off. I say that’s one negative check for FPF, Scolari and all responsible for developing the game in PT.

Don’t get me wrong. In the struggle to prepare for the Cup there were many challenges far more critical then the “goalie’ question. For one, how about just basic cohesion and focus. These were among the most highly compensated footballers. All of them veterans and they let a team with one or two pros draw at 2 – 2. I don’t expect that to happen in a tourny, but who knows. Scolari somehow brings the majority of the underlying structural problems with PT football into check. At least with him at the helm, we can relax a bit and focus on more fundamental and time honored worries like who’s the best goalie.

Posted from  United States

Hello again, Luis Paulo… Listen, I got your point. And my point was exactly to refute this iedea. Not to show that Ricardo is better than Taffarel.

I simply do not agree with you, when you say Portugal has no capacity, or enough production, of good to excellent goal-keepers.

We don’t have a stellar goal keeper now – we did and I still prefer Ricardo. But we’ve always had very good goalies. Ricardo might actually be one of the worse. He was, anyway, also a champion with Boavista some years ago.

Sporting and FC Porto always had a good “goaly school”, Sporting Braga always seem to have a good one (this is the club where Quim was before moving to Benfica), Paulo Santos is the Braga goalie, etc…

Quim is not playing this year but he was the goaly in Trapatoni’s team, last year, and they were champions. Moreira is also very good but

Both of them were a lot of time injured in the course of the season.

What is beeing dealt here considering the goalies, should be done considering strikers. This is our super old problem.

I gave you some names of goalies, last time, who were very good. SIlvino, Damas, Bento, Baia, Brassard (now the goaly coach) they were all very, very good. How many Casillas, Kahns, Pooms (the guy from estonia) and Buffons does the world produce?

Posted from  Netherlands

Ok, Portugal produced some goalies, but in a differente scenario. There was never this many foreigners goalies. Right now, so few goalies have their chance to play, so it will be more difficult to develop another Ricardo. I’m not even saying a Buffon. It only gets harder as long as you don’t give them the chance to play and develop himself.

Hi LP. I got what you meant. I also wanted to stirr it up a bit. And to show that Portugal doesn’t have the goalie we al wanted NOW but it won’t be that difficult (I hope) to find another.

Posted from  Netherlands